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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026364251

THE
BRASS CHECK

A Study of
American Journalism

BY

UPTON SINCLAIR

%

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA.

A LETTER FOR THE TIME

ViLLENEUVE, Switzerland,
Monday, Oct. 6, 1919.
My Dear Confrere:

I am happy to see you always so burning with
energy, but your next book prepares for you some rude
combats. It requires a bold courage to dare, when
one is alone, to attack the monster, the new Minotaur,
to which the entire world renders tribute: the Press.

I return to Paris in a few weeks. Reaction there
holds the center of the walk. It speaks already as
master, and perhaps it will be master before the end
of the winter. The wave of counter-revolution, of
counter-liberty, passes over the world. It will drown
more than one among us, but it will retire, and our
ideas will conquer.

Very cordially I press your hand.

ROMAIN ROLLANn

CONTENTS

PART I

THE EVIDEMCE

Chapter Page

I. The Story of the Brass Check 13

II. The Story of a Poet 17

III. Open Sesame! 22

IV. The Real Fight '27

y. The Condemned Meat Industry 32

VI. An Adventure with RooseTelt 39

VTI. Jackals and a Carcase i 45

VIII. The Last Act 50

IX. Aiming at the Public's Heart 65

X. A Voice from Russia 58

XI. A Venture in Co-operation 82

XII. The Village Horse-Doctor «8

Xm. In High Society 74

XIV. The Great Panic 8*

XV. Shredded Wheat Biscuit }.. 8«

XVI. An Interview on Marriage 9ft

XVII. "Gaming" on the Sabbnth 97

XVIII. An Essential Monogamist 102

XIX. In the Lion's Den 119

XX. The Story of a Lynching 114

XXI. Journalism and Burglary 121

XXII. A Millionaire and an Author 125

XXHL The "Heart-Wife" 139

5

6 Contents

Chapter Page

XXIV. The Mourning Pickets 142

XXV. The Case of the Associated Press 150

XXVI. A Governor and His Lie 154

XXVII. The Associated Press at the Bar 165

XXVIII. The Associated Press and Its Newspapers 169

XXIX. The Scandal-Bureau 176

XXX. The Concrete Wall , 184

XXXI. Making Bomb-Makers 191

XXXII. The Roof-Garden of the World 197

XXXIII. A Fountain of Poison 202

XXXIV. The Ddily Cat-and-Dog Fight 213

PART II

THE EXPLANATION

XXXV. The Causes of Things 221

XXXVI. The Empire of Business 228

XXXVH. The Dregs of the Cup 237

XXXVIII. Owning the Press 241

XXXIX. The War-Makers 250

XL. Owning the Owners '. ... 258

XLI., The Owner in Politics 263

XLII. Owning the Associated Press 271

XLIH. The Owner and His Advertisers 282

XLIV. The Advertising Boycott 289

XLV. The Advertising Ecstasy 295

XLVI. The Bribe Direct 30O

XLVIL The Bribe Wholesale 307

XLV\U. Poison Ivy 311

Contents T

Chapteb Page

XLIX. The Elbert Hubbard Worm 314

L. The Press and Public Welfare 316

LI. The Press and the Radicals 323

LII. Thx5 Press and the Socialists 327

LIII. The Press and Sex 332

LIV. The Press and Crime 337

LV. The Press and Jack London 341

LVL The Press and Labor 346

LVIL The Associated Press and Labor 353

LVIIL "Poisoned at the Source" 362

LIX. The Press and the War 377

LX. The Case of Russia 385

LXL "Bolshevism" in America 395

PART III

THE REMEDY

LXII. Cutting the Tiger's Claws 403

LXIII. The Mental Munition-Factory 408

LXIV. The Problem of the Reporter 415

LXV. The Press Set Free 421

LXVL A Frame-up That Fell Down 429

Conclusion 436

A Practical Program 438

Publisher's Note 443

INTRODUCTORY

The social body to which we belong is at this moment
passing through one of the greatest crises of its history, a
colossal process which may best be likened to a birth. We
have each 6f us a share in this process, we are to a greater
or less extent responsible for its course. To make our judg-
ments, we must have reports from other parts of the social
body; we must know what our fellow-men_, in all classes of
society, in all parts of the world, are suffering, planning, doing.
There arise emergencies which require swift decisions, under
penalty of frightful waste and suffering. What if the nervea
upon which we depend for knowledge of this social body
should give us false reports of its condition?

The first half of this book tells a personal story: the story
of one man's experiences with American Journalism. This
personal feature is not pleasant, but it is unavoidable. If I
were taking the witness-chair in a court of justice, the jury
would not ask for my general sentiments and philosophic
opinions; they would not ask what other people had told me,
or what was common report; the thing they would wish to
know — ^the only thing they would be allowed to know — is
what I had personally seen and experienced. So now, taking
the witness-stand in the case of the American public versus
Journalism, I tell what I have personally seen and experienced. '
I take the oath of a witness: the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help me God. After this pledge,
earnestly given and earnestly meant, the reader must either
believe me, or he must exclude me from the company of
civilized men.

My motive in writing this book is not to defend myself.
We live in a time of such concentrated agony and peril that a
man who would waste ink and paper on a defense of his own
personality would be contemptible. What I tell you is : "Look !
Here is American Journalism! Here is what it did to one
man, systematically, persistently, deliberately, for a period of
twenty years. Here are names, places, dates — such a mass of
material as you cannot doubt, you cannot evade. Here is the

9

"^^ Inteoductoey

whole thing, inside and out. Here are your sacred names,
the very highest of your gods. When you have read this story,
you will know our Journalism; you will know the body and
soul of it, you will know it in such a way that you will not
have to be told what it is doing to the movement for industrial
freedom and self-government all over the world."

In the second half of the book you will hear a host of
other witnesses-^several score of them, the wisest and truest
and best people of our country. They are in every part of
our country, in every class and every field of public life; and
when you have heard their experiences, told for the most part
in their own words, you must grant my claim concerning this
book — ^that it is a book of facts. There are no mistakes in
it, no guesses, no surmises ; there are no lapses of memory, no
inaccuracies. There are only facts. You must understand that
I have had this book in mind for twenty years. For twelve
years I have been deliberately collecting the documents and
preserving the records, and I have these before me as I write.
In a few cases of personal experiences I have relied upon my
memory ; but that memory is vivid, because the incidents were
pciinful, they were seared into my soul, and now, as I recall
• them, I see the faces of the people, I hear their very tones.
Where there is any doubt or vagueness in my recollection, or
where there is hearsay testimony, I state the fact explicitly;
otherwise I wish the reader to understand that the incidents
happened as I say they happened, and that upon the truth of
every statement in this book I pledge my honor as a man
and my reputation as a writer.

One final word: In this book I have cast behind me the
proprieties usually held sacred ; I have spared no one, I have
narrated shameful things. I have done this, not because I
have any pleasure in scandal; I have not such pleasure,
being by nature impersonal. I do not hate one living being.
The people I have lashed in this book are to me not individuals,
but social forces; I have exposed them, not because they lied
about me, but because a new age of fraternity is trying to be
born, and they, who ought to be assisting the birth, are stran-
gling the child in the womb.

PART I

THK EVIDENCE

CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF THE BRASS CHECK

Once upon a time there was a little boy ; a nice little boy,
■whom you would have liked if you had known him — ^at least,
so his mother says. He had been brought up in the traditions
of the old South, to which the two most important things in
the world were good cooking and good manners. He obeyed
his mother and father, and ate his peas with a fork, and never
buttered the whole slice of his bread. On Sunday mornings
he carefully shined his shoes and brushed his clothes at the
window, and got into a pair of tight kid gloves and under a
tight little brown derby hat, and walked with his parents to
a church on Fifth Avenue. On week-days he studied hard
and obeyed his teachers, and in every field of thought and
activity he believed what was told him by those in authority.
He learned the catechism and thought it was the direct word
of God. When he fell sick and the doctor came, he put him-
self in the doctor's hands with a sense of perfect trust and
content; the doctor knew what to do, and would do it, and
the little boy would get well.

The boy's grandfather had been a Confederate naval
officer, drowned at sea. The boy's father had spent his youth
in Virginia during the agonies of the Civil War, thus missing
most of his education. After the war the family was ruined,
and the father had to enter into competition with Yankee
"hustle," handicapped by a Southern gentleman's quaint notions
of dignity, and also by a Southern gentleman's weakness for
mint-juleps. So the last week's board bill was generally a
matter of anxiety to the family. But always, no matter how
poor the family might be, the little boy had a clean white
collar, and a copy of the "New York Sun" every morning.
This paper was beautifully printed, smooth and neat; the
little boy knew all its peculiarities of type, and he and his
father and his mother accepted every word they read in it,
both the news-columns and the editorial page, precisely as they
accepted the doctor's pills and the clergyman's sermons, the
Bible and the multiplication table and Marian Harland's cook-
book.

13

14 The Bbass Check

The "New York Sun" was edited by one of the bitterest
cynics that ever lived in America. He had been something of
a radical in his early days, and had turned like a fierce wolf
upon his young ideals. He had one fixed opinion, which was
that everything new in the world should be mocked at and
denounced. He had a diabolical wit, and had taught a
tradition to his staff, and had infected a good part of American
Journalism with the poison of his militant cynicism. Once
every twenty-four hours the little boy absorbed this poison,
he took it for truth, and made all his ideas of it.

For example, there were women who' were trying to
be different from what women had always been. There
was a thing called "Sorosis." The boy never knew what
"Sorosis" was; from the "Sun" he gathered that it was a
collection of women who wanted to have brains, and to take
part in public affairs — ^whereas the "Sun" acidly considered
that woman's place was the home. And the boy found it
easy to agree with this. Did not the boy's grandmother make
the best ginger-cakes of any grandmother in the whole city
of Baltimore? Did not his mother make the best chocolate-
cake and the best "hot short-cake" — ^that is, whenever the
family could escape from boarding-houses and have a little
kitchen of its own. The boy was enormously fond of chocolate-
cake and short-cake, and of course he didn't want women
neglecting their duties for fool things such as "Sorosis."

Also there were the Populists. The little boy had never
seen a Populist, he had never been given an opportunity to
read a Populist platform, but he knew all about the Populists
from the funny editorials of Charles A. Dana. The Populists
were long-haired and wild-eyed animals whose habitat was the
corn-fields of Kansas. The boy knew the names of a lot of
them, or rather the nick-names which Dana gave them ; he. had
a whole portrait-gallery of them in his mind. Once upon a
time the "Sun" gave some statistics from Kansas, suggesting
that the Populists were going insane; so the little boy took
his pen in hand and wrote a letter to the editor of the "Sun,"
gravely rebuking him. He had never expected to read in the
columns of the "Sun" a suggestion that Populists might go
insane. And the "Sun" published this feeble product of its
own "smartness."

Later on the boy discovered the "New York Evening Post,"
the beau ideal of a gentleman's newspaper, and this became jEor

The Stoey of the Brass Check 15

years his main source of culture. The "Evening Post" was
edited by E. L. Godkin, a scholar and a lover of righteousness,
but narrow, and with an abusive tongue. From him the boy
learned that American politics were rotten, and he learned
the cause of the rottenness : First, there was an ignorant mob,
composed mainly of foreigners ; and second, there were venal
politicians who pandered to this mob. Efforts were continually
being made by gentlemen of decency and culture to take the
government away from these venal politicians, but the mob
was too ignorant, and could not be persuaded to support a
clean government. Yet the fight must be kept up, because
conditions were going from bad to worse. The boy witnessed
several "reform campaigns," conducted mainly by the "Evening
Post" and other newspapers. These campaigns consisted in
the publication of full-page exposures of civic rottenness, with
denuhciations of the politicians in office. The boy believed
every word of the exposures, and it never occurred to him
that the newspapers might be selling more copies by means
of them; still less did it occur to him that anybody might be
finding in these excitements a means of diverting the mind
of the public from larger and more respectable forms of
"graft."

There was a candidate for district attorney, William
Travers Jerome by name; a man with a typical "Evening
Post" mind, making an ideal "Evening Post" candidate. He
conducted a "whirlwind" campaign, speaking at half a dozen
meetings every evening, and stirring his audience to frenzy
by his accounts of the corruption of the city's police-force.
Men would stand up and shout with indignation, women would
faint or weep. The boy would sit with his finger-nails dug
into the palms of his hands, while the orator tore away the
veils from subjects which were generally kept hidden from
little boys.

The orator described the system of prostitution, which
was paying its millions every year to the police of the city.
He pictured a room in which women displayed their persons,
and men walked up and down and inspected them, selecting
one as they would select an animal at a fair. The man paid
his three dollars, or his five dollars, to a cashier at the
window, and received a brass check; then he went upstairs,
and paid this check to the woman upon receipt of her favors.
And suddenly the orator put his hand into his pocket and drew

16 The Brass Check

forth tne bit of metal. "Behold!" he cried. "The price of
a woman's shame !"

To the lad in the audience this BRASS CHECK was the
symbol of the most monstrous wickedness in the world. Night
after night he would attend these meetings, and next day
he would read about them in the papers. He was a student
at college, living in a lodging-house room on four dollars a
week, which he earned himself ; yet he pitched in to help this
orator's campaign, and raised something over a hundred
dollars, and took it to the "Evening Post" candidate at his
club, interrupting him at dinner, and no doubt putting a strain
on his patience. The candidate was swept into office in a
tornado of excitement, and did what all "Evening Post"
candidates did and always do — ^that is, nothing. For four
long years the lad waited, in bewilderment and disgust, ending
in rage. So he learned the grim lesson that there is more
than one kind of parasite feeding on human weakness, there
is more than one kind of prostitution which may be s3rmbol-
ized by the BRASS CHECK.

CHAPTER II
THE STORY OF A POET

The boy, now become a youth, obtained a letter of introduc-
tion from his clergyman to the editor of his beloved "Evening
Post," and at the age of sixteen was given a trial as reporter.
He worked for a week collecting odd scraps of news, and
when the week was over he had earned the generous sum of
two dollars and sixty-seven cents. This was his first and last
experience as newspaper reporter, and it confirmed his boyish
impression of the integrity of the journalistic profession. His
work had consisted of compiling obituary notices about leading
citizens who had died. "John T. McGurk, senior partner of
McGurk and Isaacson, commission-merchants of 679 Des-
brosses Street, died yesterday of cirrhosis of the liver at his
home, 4331 George Washington Avenue, Hoboken. Mr.
McGurk was 69 years of age, and leaves a widow and eleven
children. He was a member of the Elks, and president of the
North Hoboken Bowling Association." And these facts the
"Evening Post" printed exactly as he had written them. In a
book which will not have much to say in favor of American
Journalism, let this fidelity to truth, and to the memory of the
blameless McGurk, have its due meed of praise.

The youth took to writing jokes and jingles, at which he
earned twice as much as the "Evening Post" had paid him.
Later on he took to writing dime-novels, at which he made
truly fabulous sums. He found it puzzling that this cheap
and silly writing should be the kind that brought the money.
The editors told him it was because the public wanted that
kin(l; but the youth wondered — ^might not at least part of
the blame lie with the editors, who never tried giving anything
better? It was the old problem — ^which comes first, the hen
or the egg?

We have spoken jestingly of the traditions of the old
South, in which the youth was brought up; but the reader
should not get a false impression of them — in many ways
they were excellent traditions. For one thing, they taught
the youth to despise a lie; also to hate injustice, so that

17

18 The Beass Check

wherever in his life he encountered it, his whole being became
a blaze of excitement. Always he was striving in his mind
to discover the source of lies and injustice — why should there
be so much of them in the world? The newspapers
revealed the existence of them, but never seemed to know
the causes of them, nor what to do about them, further than
to support a reform candidate who did nothing but get elected.
This futility in the face of the world's misery and corruption
was maddening to the youth.

He had rich relatives who were fond of him, so that he
was free to escape from poverty into luxury; he had the
opportunity to rise quickly in the world, if he would go into
business, and devote his attention thereto. But would he find
in business the ideals which he craved? He talked with
business men, also he got the flavor of business from the
advertisements in the newspapers — and he knew that this was
not what he was seeking. He cultivated the friendship of
Jesus, Hamlet and Shelley, and fell in love with the young
Milton and the young Goethe; in them he found his own
craving for truth and beauty. Here, through the medium of
art, life might be ennobled, and lifted from the muck of graft
and greed.

So the youth ran away and buried himself in a hut in
the wilds of Canada, and wrote what he thought was the
great American novel. It was a painfully crude performance,
but it had a new moral impulse in it, and the youth really
believed that it was to convert the world to ways of love and
justice. He took it to the publishers, and one after another
they rejected it. They admitted that it had merit, but it
would not sell. Incredible as it seemed to the youth, the test
by which the publishers judged an embryo book and its right
to be born, was not whether it had vision and beauty and a
new moral impulse; they judged it as the newspapers judged
what they published — ^would it sell? The youth earned some
money and published the book himself, and wrote a preface
to tell the world what a wonderful book it was, and how the
cruel publishers had rejected it. This preface, together with
the book, he sent to the leading newspapers ; and thus began
the second stage of his journalistic experiences!

Two newspapers paid attention to his communication — ^the
"New York Times," a respectable paper, and the "New York
American," a "yellow" paper. The "American" sent a woman

The Stoky of a Poet 19

reporter, an agreeable and friendly young lady, to whom the
author poured out his soul. She asked for his picture, saying
that this would enable her to get much more space for the
story ; so the author gave his picture. She asked for his wife's
picture; but here the author was obdurate. He had old-
fashioned Southern notions about "newspaper notoriety" for
ladies ; he did not want his wife's picture in the papers. There
stood a little picture of his wife on the table where the interview
took place, and after the reporter had left, it was noticed
that this picture was missing. Next day the picture was
published in the "New York American," and has been pub-
lished in the "New York American" every year or two since.
The author, meantime, has divorced his first wife and married
a second wife — a fact of which the newspapers are fully
aware; yet they publish this picture of the first wife indif-
ferently as a picture of the first wife and of the second wife.
When one of these ladies says or does a certain thing, the
other lady may open her paper in the morning and receive
a shock!

Both the "New York Times"' and the "New York
American" published interviews with the young author. It had
been his fond hope to interest people in his book and to cause
them to read his book, but in this he failed; what both the
interviews told about was his personality. . The editors had
been amused by the naive assumption of a young poet that
he might have something of importance to say to the world;
they had made a "human interest" story out of it, a journalistic
tidbit to tickle the appetites of the jaded and worldly-wise.
They said scarcely anything about the contents of the book,
and as a result of the two interviews, the hungry young author
sold precisely two copies !

Meantime he was existing by hack-work, and exploring
the world in which ideas are bought and sold. He was having
jokes and plots of stories stolen; he was having agreements
broken and promises repudiated; he was trying to write
worth-while material, and being told that it would not sell;
he was trying to become a book-reviewer, and finding that the
only way to succeed was to be a cheat. The editor of the
"Independent" or the "Literary Digest" would give him half
a dozen books to read, and he would read them, and write
an honest review, saying that there was very little merit in
any of them: whereupon, the editor would decide that it was

20 The Brass Check

not worth while to review the books, and the author would
get nothing for his work. If, on the other hand, he wrote an
article about a book, taking it seriously, and describing it as
vital and important, the editor would conclude that the book
was worth reviewing, and would publish the review, and pay
the author three or four dollars for it.

This, you understand, was the "literary world," in which
ideas, the most priceless possession of mankind, were made
the subject of barter and sale. In every branch of it there
were such petty dishonesties, such tricks of the trade. There
were always ten times as many people trying to get a living
as the trade would support. They were clutching at chances,
elbowing each other out of the way; and thfiiiLeflforts were
not rewarded according to their love of truth andl5eauty,'But
according to quite other factors. They were dressing them-
selves up and using the "social game," they were posing and
pretending, the women were using the sex-lure. And every-
where, when they pretended to care about literature and ideas,
they were really caring about money, and "success" because
it would bring money. Everywhere, above all things else,
they hated and feared the very idea of genius, which put them
to shame, and threatened with annihilation their petty gains
and securities.

From these things the youth fled into the wilderness again,
living in a tent with his young wife, and writing a story in
which he poured out his contempt upon the great Metropolis
of Mammon. This was "Prince Hagen," and he sent it to
the "Atlantic Monthly," and there came a letter from the editor.
Professor Bliss Perry, saying that it was a work of merit
and that he would publish it. So for weeks the young author
walked on the top of the clouds. But then came another
letter, saying that the other members of the "Atlantic" staff
had read the story, and that Professor Perry had been unable
to persuade them to see it as he saw it. "We have," said he.
"a very conservative, fastidious and sophisticated constituency."
, The young author went back to his "pot-boiling." He spent
another winter in New York, wrestling with disillusionments
and humiliations, and then, fleeing to the wilderness for a
third summer, he put his experience into "The Journal of
Arthur Stirling," the story of a young poet who is driven to
suicide by neglect and despair. The book was given to the
world as a genuine document, and relieved the tedium of a

The Stoky of a Poet 31

literary season. Its genuineness was accepted almost every-
where, and the author sat behind the scenes, feeling quite
devilish. When the secret came out, some critics were cross,
and one or two of them have not yet forgiven the writer.
The "New York Evening Post" is accustomed to mention the
matter every once in a while, declaring that the person who
played that trick can never receive anyone's confidence. I
will not waste space discussing this question, save to point out
that the newspaper reviewers had set the rules of the game —
that love and beauty in art were heeded only in connection
with personalities and sensation; so, in order to project love
and beauty upon the world, the young author had provided
the personalities and sensation. As for the "Evening Post"
and its self-righteousness, before I finish this book I shall tell
of things done by that organ of Wall Street which qualify
decidedly its right to sit in judgment upon questions of honor.

CHAPTER III
OPEN SESAME I

My next effort was "Manassas," a novel of the Civil war.
I poured into it. all my dream of what America might be, and
inscribed it : "That the men of this land may know the heritage
that has come down to them." But the men of this land were
not in any way interested in the heritage that had come down
to them. The men of this land were making money. The
newspapers of this land were competing for advertisements of
whiskey and cigars and soap, and the men who wrote book-
reviews for the literary pages of these newspapers were chuck-
ling over such works of commercial depravity as "The Let-
ters of a Self -Made Merchant to His Son." They had no time
to tell the public about "Manassas" ; though Jack London called
it "the best Civil War book I've read," and though it is my one
book which no severest critic can say has any propaganda
motive. Charlotte Perkins Gilman told me a story of
how she persuaded an old Civil War veteran to read it. The
old fellow didn't want to read any book about the war by a
youngster ; he had been through it all himself, and no youngster
could tell him anything. But Mrs. Gilman persisted, and
when she met him again she found him with shining eyes and
a look of wonder on his face. "It's the War !" he cried. "It's
the War — and he wasn't even born 1"

It happened that at this time Lincoln Steffens was pub-
lishing his terrible exposes of the corruption of American
civic life. Steffens did for the American people one specific
service. He Jjnoeked_i}ulLlQr£ver. the^notion,, of whixh_E^L
^dkinjndTiis^ "lliewLXQrkJEven^

exponents, that our poljtical corruption was to be blamed upon
"fKe fgnoralntToreignjelemeoL^^steSiSshow^ tEat purely
American corrimunities, such as Rhode Island, were the most
corrupt of all; and he traced back the corruption, showing
that for every man who took a bribe there was another man
who gave one,, and that the giver of the bribe made from ten
to a thousand times as much as he paid. In other words,
American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures

S3

Open Sesame 23

and assemblies to keep them from doing the people's will and
protecting the people's interests ; it was the exploiter entrench-
ing himself in power, it was fJQan cial autocracy underminin g
and d estroying political democra^ a^

Steffens did not go so far as that in the early days. He
just laid bare the phenomena, and then stopped. You searched
in vain through the articles which he published in "McClure's"
for any answer to the question : What is to be done about it ?
So I wrote what I called "An Open Letter to Lincoln Steffens."
I cannot find it now, but I recall the essence of it well enough.

"Mr. Steffens, you go from city to city and from state to
state, and you show us these great corporations buying public
privileges and capitalizing them for tens and hundreds of
millions of dollars, and unloading the securities upon the
general investing public. You show this enormous mass of
capital piling up, increasing at compound interest, demanding
its toll of dividends, which we, the people who do the hard
work of the world, who produce the real wealth of the world,
must continue forever to pay. I ask you to tell us, what are
we to do about this? Shall we go on forever paying tribute
upon this mass of bribery and fraud? Can we go on paying
it forever, even if we want to ? And if not, what then ? What
will happen when we refuse to pay?"

I sent this letter to Steffens, to see what he thought about
it. He replied that it was the best criticism of his work that
he had seen, and he tried to persuade "McClure's" to publish
it, but in vain. I forget whether it was he or I who sent it to
"Collier's Weekly"; but anyway, the article was read and ac-
cepted, and Robert J. Collier, the publisher, wrote and asked
me to come to see him.

Picture me at this moment, a young writer of twenty-five
who has been pleading with the American public to remember
its high traditions, and has seen his plea fall flat, because the
newspapers and magazines overlooked him; also — a painful
detail, but important — who has been supporting a wife and
baby on thirty dollars a month, and has been paid only five
hundred dollars for two years work on a novel. A friend who
knows the literary world tells me that this is the chance of
my life. "Collier's" is run "on a personal basis," it appears;
a sort of family affair. "If Robbie likes you, your fortune is
made," says my friend. "This is your 'open sesame' to the
public mind."

24 The Bbass Check

Well, I go to see Robbie, and it appears that Robbie likes
me. I am young and ascetic-looking ; the tension under which
I have worked has given me dyspepsia, so my cheeks are hollow
and my skin is white and my eyes have a hectic shine. Robbie,
no doubt, is moved to sympathy by these phenomena ; he him-
self is a picture of health, florid and jolly, a polo-player, what
is called a "good fellow." He asks me, will I come to dinner
at his home and meet some of his friends and his editorial
staff ? I answer that of course I will.

My worldly-wise friend insists that I shall invest my spare
savings in a dress-suit, but I do not take this advice. 1 go
to Robbie's palatial home in my old clothes, and Robbie's
velvet-footed butler escorts me upstairs to Robbie's dressing-
room, where Robbie's valet is laying out his things on the bed.
And while Robbie is dressing, he tells me again how much he
admires my article. It is the most illuminating discussion of
present-day problems that he has ever read. He and his friends
don't meet many Socialists, naturally, so I am to tell them
about Socialism. I am to tell them everything, and needn't
be afraid. I answer, quite simply, that I shall not be in the
least afraid.

The evening was spoiled because Robbie's father came in.
Old Peter Collier was a well-known character in New York
"society"; but as not all my readers have been intimate in
these circles, I explain that he had begun life as a pack-peddler,
had started "Collier's Weekly" as an advertisement sheet, and
by agents offering books as premiums had built up a tremen-
dous circulation. Now he was rich and important; vulgar,
ignorant as a child, but kind-hearted, jovial — one of those nice,
fatherly old fellows who put their arms about you, no matter
who you are.

And here he had come in to dinner with his son, and found
his son entertaining a Socialist. "What? What's this?" he
cried. It was like a scene in a comedy. He would hear one
sentence of what I had to say, and then he would go up in
the air. "Why — ^why — ^that's perfectly outrageous ! Who ever
heard of such a thing?" He would sputter for five or ten
minutes, to the vast amusement of the rest of the guests.

Presently he heard about the "Open Letter to Lincoln
Steffens." "What's this ? You are going to publish an article
like that in my magazine? No, sir! I won't have it! It's
preposterous!" And there sat Robbie, who was supposed to

Open Sesame 25

be the publisher; there sat Norman Hapgood, who was sup-
posed to be the editor — and listened to Old Peter lay down
the law. Norman Hapgood has since stated that he does not
remember this episode, that he never knew Peter Collier to
interfere with the policy of the magazine. Well, the reader
may believe that the incident was not one that I would forget
in a hurry. Not if I should live to be as old as Methuselah
will I forget my emotions, when, after the dinner, the old
gentleman got me off in a corner and put his arm around
my shoulders. "You are a nice boy, and I can see that you've
got brains, you know what you're talking about. But what
you ought to do is to put the^e ideas of yours into a book.
Why do you try to get them into my magazine, and scare
away my half million subscribers?"

I went home that evening feeling more sick at heart than
I like to remember. And sure enough, my worst fears were
justified. Week after week passed, and my Open Letter to
Lincoln StefFens did not appear in the columns of "Collier's
Weekly." I wrote and protested, and was met with evasions ;
a long time afterwards, I forget how long, "Collier's" gra-
ciously condescended to give me back the article, without ask-
ing the return of the two hundred dollars they had paid me.
The article was rejected by many other capitalist magazines,
and was finally published in some Socialist paper, I forget
which.

Such is the picture of a magazine "run on a personal basis."
Arid see what it means to you, the reader, who depend upon
such a magazine for the thoughts you think. Here is Lincoln
Steffens, taking his place as America's leading authority on the
subject of political graft ; and here am I, making what Steff ens
declares is the best criticism of his work. It is accepted and
paid for, and a date is set to give it to you, the reader; but
an ignorant and childish old pack-peddler steps in, and with
one wave of his hand sweeps it out of your sight. Sixteen
years have passed, and only now you hear about it — and most
of you don't hear about it even now!

But here is a vital point to get clear. The old pack-peddler
wiped out my discussion of the question, but he did not wipe
out the question. To-day the question is cried aloud from the
throats of a hundred and eighty million people in Russia, and
the clamor of it spreads all over Europe, a deafening roar
which drowns out the eloquence of statesmen and diplomats*

26 The Bbass Check

It is the question of the hour in America, and America must
find the answer under penalty of civil war. Sixteen years
ago the answer was given to Robert Collier, and if he had had
the courage to stand out against his father, if Norman Hap-
good had been what he pretended to be, an editor, they would
have taken up the truth which I put before them, they would
have conducted a campaign to make the American people see
it — and to-day we should not be trying to solve the social
problem by putting the leaders of the people's protest into jail.

CHAPTER IV
THE REAL FIGHT

There was a strike of the wage-slaves of the Beef Trust
in Chicago, and I wrote for the "Appeal to Reason" a broad-
side addressed to these strikers, trying to point out to them
the truth which Peter Collier had concealed from his precious
half million subscribers. This broadside was taken up by the
Socialists of the Stockyards district, and thirty thousand copies
were distributed among the defeated strikers. The "Appeal
to Reason" offered me five hundred dollars to live on while
I wrote a novel dealing with the life of those wagerslavps of
the Beef Trust ; so I went to Packingtown, and lived for seven
weeks among the workers, and came home again and wrote
"The Jungle." _ .,^ -5

Now so far the things that had been done to me by the
world of American Journalism had been of a mocking nature.
I had been a sort of "guy" ; a young poet — ^very young — who
believed that he had "genius," and kept making a noise about
it. So I was pigeon-holed with long-haired violinists from
abroad, and painters with fancy-colored vests, and woman suf-
fragists with short hair, and religious prophets in purple robes.
All such things are lumped together by newspapers, which are
good-naturedly- tolerant of their fellow fakers. The public
likes to be amused, and "genius" is one of the things that
amuse it : such is the attitude of a world which understands
that money is the one thing in life really worth while, the
making of money the one object of grown-up and serious--
minded men.

But from now on you will see that there enters into my
story a new note. The element of horse-play goes out, and
something grim takes its place. And what is the reason for
this change? Was there any change in me? Did I suddenly
become dissipated, dishonest, self-seeking? No, there was no
change in me ; I was the same person, living the same life. But
I ceased to oppose social wickedness with the fragile weapon
of poetry, with visions and inspirations and consecrations;
instead, I took a sharp sword of contemporary fact, and thrust

37 '

28 The Bbass Check

it into the vitals of one of those monstrous parasites which
are sucking the life-blood of the American people. That was
the difference; and if from now on you find in this story a
note of fierce revolt, please understand that you are listening
to a man who for fourteen years had been in a battle, and
has seen his cause suffering daily wounds from a cruel and
treacherous foe.

My first experience, it happened, was with "Collier's
Weekly." But it was not a dinner-party experience this time,
there was no element of friendliness or sociability in it.

"The Jungle" was appearing serially, and was causing a
tremendous lot of discussion ; it occurred to me that it might
be possible to persuade "Collier's" to take up the matter, so
I wrote an article, telling quite simply sonje of the things
that were going on in the packing-houses of Chicago. I had
been there, and had seen — and not as a blundering amateur,
as the packers charged. It happened that I had met in Chicago
an Englishman, Mr. Adolph Smith, the world's greatest
authority on packing-houses. He had studied methods of
meat-packing all over Great Britain, and all over the continent
of Europe, for the "London Lancet," the leading medical
paper of Great Britain. He had come, as authorized represent-
ative of the "Lancet," to investigate conditions in America.
I had his backing in what I wrote ; I also had the backing of
various State and Federal authorities ; I had the text of the
Federal meat-inspection law, which had been written by the
packers to enable them to sell diseased meat with impunity.

I took all these facts to Norman Hapgood and Robert
Collier. I offered them the opportunity to reap the fame and
profit which I subsequently reaped from the book-publication
of "The Jungle," and incidentally to do a great public service.
They were interested, but not convinced, and they employed
a United States army-officer. Major Louis L. Seaman, who
went put to Chicago and accepted the hospitality of the packers,
and reported that all my charges were exag'gerated, and most
of them entirely false. And Collier and Hapgood accepted
Major Seaman's word against my word and the authorities I
offered.

That was all right ; I had no complaint against that ; they
used their editorial judgment. My complaint was of the way
they handled the story. In their preliminary announcement
(April 15,1905) they said:

The Real Fight 39

Some very brilliant articles have been sent us about the un-
hjrgienic methods of the Beef Trust. In order not to run any risk
of wronging that organization we engaged Major Seaman to go to
Chicago, and his first report will appear next week.

So, you see, they were going to give an illustration of
editorial fairness, of scrupulous regard for exact truth; and
having thus prepared their readers, on April 23, 1905, they
presented their material — a long article by Major Seaman,
praising the Chicago Stockyards, and pretending to refute all
my charges. At the same time they published only three
paragraphs of my charges — ^the great bulk of my articles they
left unpublished! They gave their readers a few paragraphs
from the "London Lancet," but so far as concerned me, the
readers got only the answers of Major Seaman, and an in-
troductory editorial condemnation of me, explaining that I had
submitted my articles to the editors, and they, "desirous of
securing the unexaggerated facts," had sent Major Seaman to
Chicago, and now gave his findings.

And this not being enough, they added a discussion of the
matter on their editorial page. This editorial they headed,
"Sensationalism"; and they subtly phrased it to give the im-
pression that the paragraphs they were publishing constituted
all I had to say : "Mr. Sinclair's article, published alone, would
have produced much more of a sensation than it will produce
as mitigated by the report of Major Seaman .... Having
some doubt, however, about the real facts, we induced Major
Seaman to make the trip to Chicago. This incident will serve
as an example of the policy mapped out for the conduct of
this paper."

How dignified and impressive! And how utterly and un-
speakably knavish! And when I wrote to them and protested,
they evaded. When I demanded that they publish my entire
article, they refused. When I demanded that they publish my
letter of protest, they refused that. And this was done by
Norman Hapgood, who posed as a liberal, a lover of justice;
a man who spent his editorial time balancing like a tight-rope
walker on the narrow thread of truth, occupying himself like
a medieval schoolman with finding the precise mathematical
or metaphysical dead centre between the contending forces of
conservatism and radicalism. A friend of mine talked with
him about his treatment of me and reported him as saying.

30 The Bbass Check

with a smile : "We backed the wrong horse." The truth was,
he had backed the horse of gold, the horse that came to his
ofiSce loaded down with full-page advertisements of packing-
house products.

"Collier's" calls itself "The National Weekly," and has
obtained a reputation as a liberal organ, upon the strength of
several useful campaigns. It attacked spiritualist fakers and
land-fraud grafters ; also it attacked dishonest medical adver-
tising. It could do this, having arrived at the stage of security
where it counts upon full-page advertisements of automobiles
and packing-house products. But when it was a question of
attacking packing-house advertisements — then what a dif-
ference !

Robert J. Collier was a gentleman and a "good fellow";
but he was a child of his world, and his world was a rotten
one, a "second generation" of idle rich spendthrifts. The run-
ning of his magazine "on a personal basis" amounted to this :
a young writer would catch the public fancy, and Robbie would
send for him, as he sent for me ; if he proved to be a possible
person — ^that is, if he came to dinner in a dress-suit, and didn't
discuss the socialization of "Collier's Weekly" — Robbie would
take him up and introduce him to his "set," and the young
writer would have a perpetual market for his stories at a
thousand dollars per story; he would be invited to country-
house parties, he would motor and play golf and polo, and
flirt with elegant young society ladies, and spend his after-
noons loafing in the Hoffman House bar. I could name not
one but a dozen young writers and illustrators to whom I
have seen that happen. In the beginning they wrote about
America, in the end they wrote about the "smart set" of
Fifth Avenue and Long Island. In their personal life they
became tipplers and cafe celebrities; in their intellectual life
they became bitter cynics ; into their writings you saw creeping
year by year the subtle poison of sexual excess — until at
last they became too far gone for "Collier's" to tolerate any
longer, and went over to the "Cosmopolitan," which takes
them no matter how far gone they are.

And now young Collier is dead, and the magazine to which
for a time he gave his generous spirit has become an instrument
of reaction pure and simple. It opposed and ridiculed
President Wilson's peace policies; it called the world to war
against the working-class of Russia; it is now calling for

The Reai. Fight 31

repression of all social protest in America; in short, it is an
American capitalist magazine. As I write, word comes that
it has been taken over by the Crowell Publishing Company,
publishers of the "Woman's Home Companion," "Farm and
Fireside," and the "American Magazine." I shall have some-
thing to the point to say about this group of publications very
soon.

P. S. — A well known journalist writes me that he feels I do an
injustice to Norman Hapgood in telling the above story, and in failing
to give credit to Hapgood for other fine things he has done. The writer
brings facts, and I am always ready to give place to the man with
facts. I quote his letter :

"Do you know the circumstances of Hapgood's break with Col-
lier? Hapgood was the highest paid editor of any periodical in the
country. The business side was encroaching on the editorial — de-
manding that advertising be not jeopardized, and with it the com-
missions that were its par^. Collier, as you know, for years had mixed
his whiskey with chorus girls, and needed all the property could milk
to supply his erratic needs. So the business office had his ear. And
Hapgood left — and made his leaving effective. He took Harper's and
gave the country some of the most important exposes it had. Do
you know the story of the Powder Trust treason? I wrote it. It
was drawn from official records, and could not be contradicted, that
the Powder Trust had once made a contract with a German military
powder firm — in the days when military" smokeless powder was the
goal of every government — to keep it informed as to the quantity,
quality, etc., of the smokeless powder it furnished to our government.
And this was in the days when we were in the lead in that depart-
ment. The Powder Trust jumped Hapgood hard. He could have had
anything he wanted by making a simple disavowal of me, any loophole
they would have accepted — and do you have any doubt that he could
have named his own terms? He declined point blank, and threw the
challenge to the heaviest and most important client his weekly could
have had. That he guessed wrong and 'backed the wrong horse'
in the 'Jungle', may be true. But isn't it fair to assume, in the light
of his final challenge to the Collier advertising autocracy, that he was
meeting problems inside as best he could — and that he could not tell
you at the time of all the factors involved in the Collier handling of
the stodsyards story?"

CHAPTER V
THE CONDEMNED MEAT INDUSTRY

"The Jungle" had been accepted in advance by the Mac-
millah Company. Mr. Brett, president of the company, read
the manuscript, and asked me to cut out some of the more
shocking and bloody details, assuring me that he could sell ten
•^unes as many copies of the book if I would do this. So here
a|&yi I had to choose between my financial interest and my
duty!'*^~took the proposition to Lincoln Steffens, who said:
"The things you tell are unbelievable. I have a rule in my
own work — I don't tell things that are unbelievable, even when
they are true."

Nevertheless, I was unwilling to make the changes. I
offered the book to four other publishers, whose names I do
not now remember; then I began preparations to publish it
myself. I wrote to Jack London, who came to my help with
his usual impetuous generosity, writing a resounding call to
the Socialists of the country, which was published in the
"Appeal to Reason." The result was that in a couple of months
I took in four thousand dollars. The Socialists had been
reading the story in the "Appeal," and were thoroughly
aroused.

I had the book set up and the plates made, when some one
suggested Doubleday, Page and Company, so I showed the
work to them. Walter H. Page sent for me. He was a dear
old man, the best among business-men I have met. There
were several hustling young money-makers in his firm, who
saw a fortune in "The Jungle," and desperately wanted to
publish it. But Page was anxious ; he must be sure that every
word was true. We had a luncheon conference, and I was
cross-questioned on every point. A week or two passed, and
I was summoned again, and Herbert S. Houston of the firm
explained that he had a friend, James Keeley, editor of the
"Cfhicago Tribune," to whom he had taken the liberty of sub-
mitting my book. Here was a letter from Keeley — I read the
letter — saying that he had sent his best reporter, a trusted man,
to make a thorough report upon "The Jungle." And here was

32

The Condemned Meat Industry 33

the report, thirty-two typewritten pages, taking up every state-
ment about conditions in the yards, and denying one after
another.

I read Ae report, and recall one amusing detail. On page
one hundred and sixteen of "The Jungle" is a description of
the old packing-houses, their walls covered with grease and
soaked with warm moist steam. "In these rooms the germs of
tuberculosis might live for two years." The comment upon
this statement was : "Unproven theory." So it was necessary
for me to consult the text-books on bacteriology, and demon-
strate to Doubleday, Page and Company that unicellular para-
sitic organisms are sometimes endowed with immortality!

I said : "This is not an honest report. The thing you have
to do, if you really wish to know, is to send an investigator of
your own, somebody in whom you have confidence." They
decided this must be done, and picked a young lawyer, McKee
by name, and sent him to Chicago. He spent some time there,
and when he came back his verdict was that I had told the
truth. I went to dinner at McKee's home and spent the
evening hearing his story — incidentally getting one of the
shocks of my life.

McKee had done what I had urged him not to do : he had
gone first to the packers, to see what they had officially to show
him. They had placed him in charge of a man — I do not recall
the name, but we will say Jones — ^their publicity agent, a
former newspaper man, who served as host and entertainer to
inquiring visitors. He had taken McKee in charge and shown
him around, and in the course of their conversation McKee
mentioned that he was looking into the charges made in a
novel called "The Jungle." "Oh, yes !" said Jones. "I know
that book. I read it from beginning to end. I prepared a
thirty-two page report on it for Keeley of the 'Tribune'."

So here was a little glimpse behind the curtain of the news-
paper world of Chicago! James Keeley was, and still is the
beau ideal of American newspaper men ; I have never met him,
but I have read articles about him, the kind of "write-ups"
which the capitalist ^system gives to its heroes. He had begun
life as a poor boy and risen from the ranks by sheer ability
and force of character — you know the "dope." Now he was
one of the high gods of newspaperdom ; and when it was a
question of protecting the great predatory interest which sub-
sidizes all the newspapers of Chicago and holds the govern-

34 The Brass Check

ment of the city in the hollow of its hand, this high god sent
to Armour and Company and had a report prepared by their
publicity-agent, and sent this report to a friend in New York
as the result of a confidential investigation by a trusted
reporter of the "Chicago Tribune" staff!

And maybe you think this must be an unusual incident;
you think that capitalist Journalism would not often dare to
play a trick like that! I happen to be reading "Socialism
versus the State," by Emile Vandervelde, Belgian Minister
of State, and come upon this paragraph:

It will be remembered, for example, that the "London Times"
published, a few years ago, a series of unsigned articles, emanating,
it was said from an impartial observer, against the municipal lighting
systems in England. These articles made the tour of Europe. They
furnish, even today, arguments for the opponents of municipalization.
Now, a short time after their publication, it was learned that the
"impartial observer" was the general manager of one of the big
electric light and power companies of London.

Doubleday, Page and Company published "The Jungle,"
and it became the best-selling book, not only in America, but
also in Great Britain and its colonies, and was translated into
seventeen languages. It became also the subject of a terrific
political controversy.

The packers, fighting for their profits, brought all their
batteries to bear. To begin with, there appeared in the
"Saturday Evening Post" a series of articles signed by J.
Ogden Armour, but written, I was informed, by Forrest
Crissey, one of the staff of the "Post." The editor of this
paper, George Horace Lorimer, was for nine years an employee
of the Armours ; he is author of "The Letters of a Self -Made
Merchant to His Son," a text-book of American business
depravity. From first to last his paper was at the service of
the packers, as it has always been at the service of every great
financial interest.

Some of the statements made under Armour's signature
made me boil, and I sat down to write an answer, "The Con-
demned Meat Industry." I had the facts at my fingers ends,
and wrote the article in a few hours, and jumped on the train
and came up to New York with it. I took it to the office of
"Everybody's Magazine" and asked to see E. J. Ridgway, the
publisher. I was wise 'enough by this time to understand that
it is the publisher, n9t the editor, you need to see. I read the

' The Condemned Meat Industry 35

article to Ridgway, and he stopped the presses on which
"Everybody's Magazine" was being printed, and took out a
short story and shoved in "The Condemned Meat Industry."

"Everybody's Magazine" at this time was on the crest of
a wave of popularity. It had finished Tom Lawson's expose
of Wall Street, upon the strength of which it had built up a
circulation of half a million. Its publishers, Ridgway and
Thayer, were advertising men who had bought a broken-down
magazine from John Wanamaker, and had made the discovery
that there was a fortune to be made by the simple process of
letting the people have the truth. They wanted to go on making
fortunes, and so they welcomed my article. It gave the af-
fidavits of men whom the Armours had employed to take con-
demned meat out of the destructors and sell it in Chicago.
It told the story of how the Armours had bribed these men
to retract their confessions. It gave the reports of State
health authorities, who showed how the Armours had pleaded
guilty to adulterating foods. It was a mass of such facts
fused in a white heat of indignation. United States Senator
Beveridge told me that he considered the article the greatest
piece of controversial writing he had ever read.

You may find it in the library, "Everybody's" for May, 190,6.
Whatever you think of its literary style, you will see that it
is definite and specific, and revealed a most frightful condition
in the country's meat supply, an unquestionable danger to the
public health. It was therefore a challenge to every public
service agency in the country ; above all, it was a challenge to
the newspapers, through which the social body is supposed to
learn of its dangers and its needs.

It was my first complete test of American Journalism.
Hitherto I had tried the newspapers as a young poet, clamoring
for recognition ; they had called me a self-seeker, and although
I felt that the charge was untrue, I was, powerless to disprove
it to others. But now I tried them in a matter that was
obviously in the public interest — ^too obviously so for dispute.
I was still naive enough to be shocked by the result. I had
expected that every newspaper which boasted of public spirit
would take up these charges, and at least report them; but
instead of that, there was silence — silence almost complete!
I employed two dipping-bureaus on this story, and received a
few brief items from scattered papers here and there. Of all

36 The Brass Check

the newspapers in America, not one in two hundred went so
far as to mention "The Condemned Meat Industry."

Meantime "The Jungle" had been published in book form.
I will say of "The Jungle" just what I said of the magazine
article — whatever you may think of it as literature, you must
admit that it was packed with facts which constituted an appeal
to the American conscience. The book was sent to all American
newspapers; also it was widely advertised, it was boosted by
one of the most efficient publicity men in the country. And
what were the results ? I will give a few illustrations.

The most widely read newspaper editor in America is
Arthur Brisbane. Brisbane poses as a liberal, sometimes even
* as a radical ; he told me that he drank in Socialism with his
mother's milk. And Brisbane now took me up, just as Robbie
Collier had done; he invited me to his home, and wrote one
of his famous two-column editorials about "The Jungle" — a
rare compliment to a young author. This editorial treated me
personally with kindness ; I was a sensitive young poet who had
visited the stockyards for the first time, and had been horrified
by the discovery that animals had blood inside them. With a
fatherly pat on the shoulder, Brisbane informed me that a
slaughter-house is not an opera-house, or words to that effect.

I remember talking about this editorial with Adolph Smith,
representative of the "London Lancet." He remarked with
dry sarcasm that in a court of justice Brisbane would be en-
tirely safe; his statement that a slaughter-house is not an
opera-house was strictly and literally accurate. But if you
took what the statement was meant to convey to the reader —
that a slaughter-house is necessarily filthy, then the state-
ment was false. "If you go to the municipal slaughter-houses
of Germany, you find them as free from odor as an opera-
house," said Adolph Smith ; and five or six years later, when
I visited Germany, I took the opportunity to verify this state-
ment. But because of the kindness of American editorial
writers to the interests which contribute full-page g,dvertise-
ments to newspapers, the American people still have their meat
prepared in filth.

Or take the "Outlook." The "Outlook", poses as a liberal
publication; its editor preaches what he calls "Industrial
Democracy," a very funny joke. I have dealt with this organ
of the "Clerical Camouflage" in five sections of "The Profits
of Religion" ; I will not repeat here, except to quote how the

The Condemned Meat Industry 37

pious "Outlook" dealt with "The Jungle." The "Outlook"
had no doubt that there were genuine evils in the packing-
plants; the conditions of the workers ought of course to be
improved, BUT —

To disgust the reader by dragging him through every conceivable
horror, physical and moral, to depict with lurid excitement and with
offensive minuteness the life in jail and brothel — all this is to over-
reach the object .... Even things actually terrible may become (Rs^
torted when a writer screams them out in a sensational way and in a
high pitched key .... More convincing if it were less hysterical. ..--

Also Elbert Hubbard rushed to the rescue of his best
advertising clients. Later in this book you will find a chapter
dealing especially with the seer of East Aurora ; for the present
I will merely quote his comments on my packing-house revel-
ations. His attack upon "The Jungle" was reprintfed by the
Chicago packers, and mailed out to the extent of a million
copies; every clergyman and every physician in the country
received one." I have a copy of his article, as it was sent out
by a newspaper syndicate in the form of "plate-matter." It
occupies four newspaper columns, with these head-lines :

ELBERT HUBBARD LASHES THE MUCK-RAKER CROWD.-^r
Says "The Jungle" Book is a Libel and an Insult to Intelligence,
and that This Country is Making Headway as Fast as Stupidity of
Reformers Will Admit.

After which it will suffice to quote one paragraph, as
follows : -w

Can it be possible that any one is deceived by this insane rant
and drivel? —

And also the friend of my boyhood, my beloved "New York
Evening Post"! This organ of arm-chair respectability — I
have reference to the large leather receptacles which you find
in the Fifth Avenue clubs — ^had upbraided me for a harmle^
prank,. "The Journal of Arthur Stirling." Now comes "The
Jungle" ; and the "Evening Post" devotes a column to the book.
It is "lurid, overdrawn .... If the author had been a man
who cared more for exact truth," etc. Whereupon I sit my^
self down and write a polite letter to the editor of the "Evening
Post," asking will he please tell me upon what he bases this
injurious charge. I have made patient investigations in the
stoclq^ards, and the publishers of "The Jungle" have done the
same. Will the "Evening Post" state what investigations it

38 The Bbass Check

has made ? Or does it make this injurious charge against my
book without investigation, trusting that its readers will accept
its word, and that it will never be brought to book?

This is a fair question, is it not? The organs of arm-
chair respectability ought not to make loose charges against
radicals, they ought not condemn without knowledge. So I
appeal to my beloved "Evening Post," which I have read six
times per week for ten or twelve years; and the answer
comes: "It is not our custom to permit authors to reply to
book-reviews, and we see no reason for departing from our
practice in order to permit you to advertise your book and to
insult us." And so the matter rests, until a couple of months
later, the President of the United States makes an investiga-
tion, and his commission issues a report which vindicates every
charge I have made. And now what ? Does the "Evening
Post" apologize to me? Does it do anything to make clear to
its readers that it has erred in its sneers at "The Jungle"?
The ''Evening Post" says not one word; but it still continues
to tell the public that I am unworthy of confidence, because
I once played a harmless joke with "The Journal of Arthur
Stirling"!

CHAPTER VI
AN ADVENTURE WITH ROOSEVELT

I was determined to get something done about the Con-
demned Meat Industry. I was determined to get something
done about the atrocious conditions Under which men, women
and children were working in the Chicago stockyards. In my
efforts to get something done, I was like an animal in a cage.
The bars of this cage were newspapers, which stood between
me and the public; and inside the cage I roamed up and
down, testing one bar after another, and finding them im-
possible to break. I wrote letters to newspaper editors; I
appealed to public men, I engaged an extra secretary and ran
a regular publicity bureau in my home.

It happened that I had occasion to consult the record of
the congressional investigations held after the Spanish-
American War, into the quality of canned meat furnished by
the Chicago packers. Here was Theodore Roosevelt on the
witness-stand, declaring : "I would as soon have eaten my old
hat." And now Theodore Roosevelt was president of the
United States, with power, to help me if he would! In a
moment of inspiration I decided to appeal to him.

He had already heard about "The Jungle," as I learned
later; his secretary, Loeb, told me that he had been receiving
a hundred letters a day about the book. Roosevelt now wrote,
saying that he had requested the Department of Agriculture to
make an investigation. I replied that nothing could be ex-
pected from such an investigation, because the Department
of Agriculture was itself involved in my charges. If he
wanted to get the truth, he must do what Doubleday, Page and
Company had done, get an independent report. He wrote me
to come to Washington, and I had several conferences with
him, and he appointed -two of his trusted friends to go out
to Chicago and make a "secret" investigation. Three days
after this decision was made I forwarded a letter to Roosevelt
from a working-man in the Chicago stockyards, saying that
it was known all over the yards that an investigation was to
be made by the government, and that a mad campaign of
, cleaning up was in progress.

39

40 The Brass Check

Roosevelt asked me to go with his commission. I was
too busy to do this, but I sent Mrs. Ella Reeve Bloor, a
Socialist lecturer, and her husband as my representatives,
paying the cost out of my own pocket. I knew that they
would be trusted by the workers who had trusted me, and
thought they might be able to get at least a few of the facts
to Roosevelt's commission. As a matter of fact, they were
not able to do very much, because they were shadowed during
the entire time by detectives of the packers, and every work-
ingman knew that it would cost him his job to be seen near
the commission's rooms. I found the Socialists of Chicago
bitterly distrustful of the commission, and disposed to ridicule
me for trying to work with it.

The news of what was going on soon leaked into the
newspapers of Chicago. They had already published vicious
attacks upon "The Jungle" ; and upon me. One paper — I for-
get the name — ^had remarked that it was quite evident that I
knew more about the inside of the brothels of Chicago than
I knew about the stockyards. This, you understand, in a
book-review ! I replied to this that possibly the editor might
be interested to know the exact facts in the case : I had spent
seven weeks patiently investigating every corner of the stock-
yards, and I have never been inside a brothel in my life.

Now there began to be dispatches from Washington, so
phrased as to turn the investigation against me instead of
against the packers. Finally there appeared in the "Tribune"
a column or two from Washington, signed by Rajrmond
Patterson, editor of the paper. This dispatch stated in
specific and precise detail that President Roosevelt was con-
ducting a confidential investigation into the truth of "The
Jungle," intending to issue a denunciation and annihilate a
muck-raking author. On the day when this story appeared
in the "Chicago Tribune," I received seventeen telegrams
from friends in Chicago 1

One of the telegrams — from A. M. Simons — declared that
the author of the "Tribune" dispatch was Roosevelt's personal
friend. So, of course, I was considerkbly disturbed, and spent
the day trying to get Roosevelt on the telephone from Prince-
ton, not an easy achievement. First he was at a cabinet session,
then he was at luncheon, then he had gone horseback riding;
but finally, after spending my day in the telephone-office in
Princeton, I heard his voice, and this is what he said: "Mr.

An Adventure with Roosevelt 41

Sinclair, I have been in public life longer than you, and I will
give you this bit of advice ; if you pay any attention to what
the newspapers say about you, you will have an unhappy time."
So I went home to bed. The next time I saw Roosevelt he
told me that he had not seen Rayniond Patterson, nor had
he said anything about his intentions to anyone. "I don't see
how Patterson could have done such a thing," was Roosevelt's
comment.

The commissioners came back to Washington, and I went
down to see them. They were amazingly frank; they told
me everything they had seen, and everything that was in their
report to the President, nor did they place any seal of con-
fidence upon me. I realized that I was dealing with people
who desired publicity, and I had sufficient worldly tact to know
that it would be better not to mention this point, but simply
to go ahead and do what all parties concerned wanted done.

The report was known to be in the President's hands, and
he had summoned the chairmen of the agricultural committees
of the House and Senate, and was holding the report as a
threat over their heads to force them to amend the Federal
meat inspection law. The newspaper reporters all knew what
was going on, and were crazy for news. I returned to my
little farm at Princeton, and packed up a suit-case full of
documents, letters, affidavits and official reports, and came to
New York and called up the offices of the Associated Press.

Here was a sensation, not only nation-wide, but interna-
tional; here was the whole world clamoring for news about
one particular matter of supreme public importance. There
had been an investigation by the President of the United States
of one of America's greatest industries, and I had been tacitly
commissioned to' make the results known to the public, for the
benefit of the public, whose physical health was at stake. I
came to the great press association, an organization represent-
ing at that time some seven hundred newspapers, with scores
of millions of readers> hungry for news. The Associated Press
was the established channel through which the news was sup-
posed to flow; and in this crisis the channel proved to be a
concrete wall.

I was about to describe the thickness of the wall, but I
stop myself, remembering my pledge to tell the exact facts.
I do not know the thickness of this wall, because I have never
been able to dig through it. I only know that it is as thick

4» The Brass Check

as all the millions of dollars of all the vested interests of
America can build it. I first telephoned, and then seiit a
letter by special messenger to the proper officials of the Asso-
ciated Press, but they would have absolutely nothing to do
with me or my news. Not only on that day, but throughout
my entire campaign against the Beef Trust, they never sent
out a single line injurious to the interests of the packers, save
for a few lines dealing with the Congressional hearings, which
they could not entirely suppress.

It is the thesis of this book that American newspapers as a
whole represent private interests and not public interests. But
there will be occasions upon which exception to this rule is
made; for in order to be of any use at all, the newspapers
must have circulation, and to get circulation they must pretend
to care about the public. There is keen competition among
them, and once in a while it will happen that a "scoop" is too
valuable to be thrown away. Newspapermen are human, and
cannot be blamed by their owners if now and then they yield
to the temptation to publish the news. So I had found it
with "Everybody's Magazine," and so now I found it when I
went with my suit-case full of documents to the office of the
"New York Times."

I arrived about ten o'clock at night, having wasted the day
waiting upon the Associated Press. I was received by C. V.
Van Anda, managing editor of the "Times" — and never before
or since have I met such a welcome in a newspaper office. I
told them I had the entire substance of the confidential report
of Roosevelt's investigating committee, and they gave me a
private room and two expert stenographers, and I talked for
a few minutes to one stenographer, and then for a few minutes
to the other stenographer, and so the story was dashed off in
about an hour. Knowing the "Times" as I have since come
to know it, I have often wondered if they would have published
this story if they had had twenty-four hours to think, and to
be interviewed by representatives of the packers. But they
didn't have twenty^f our hours, they only had two hours. They
were caught in a whirlwind of excitement, and at one o'clock
in the morning my story was on the pfess, occupying a part
of the front page and practically all of the second page.

The question had been raised as to how the story should
be authenticated. The "Times" met the problem by putting the
story under a Washington "date-line" — ^that is, they told their

An Adventure with Roosevelt 43

readers that one of their clever correspondents in the capital
had achieved this "scoop." Being new to the newspaper game,
I was surprised at this, but I have since observed that it is a
regular trick of newspapers. When the Socialist revolution
took place in Germany, I happened to be in Pasadena, and the
"Los Angeles Examiner" called me up to ask what I knew
about the personalities in the new government. So next morn-
ing the "Examiner" had a full description of Ebert and a
detailed dispatch from Copenhagen ! .-

' The "New York TimeS," having put its hand to the plough,
went a long way down the furrow. For several days they
published my material. I gave them the address of the Bloors,.
and they sent a reporter to Delaware to interview them, and
get the inside story of the commission's experiences in Chicago ;
this also went on the front page. All these stories the "Times"
sold to scores of newspapers all over the country — newspapers
which should have received them through the Associated Press,
had the Associated Press been a news channel instead of a
concrete wall. The "Times," of course, made a fortune out
of these sales; yet it never paid me a dollar for what I gave
it, nor did it occur to me to expect a dollar. I only mention
this element to show how under the profit-system even the
wcric of reform, the service of humanity, is exploited. I
have done things like this, not once but hundreds of times in
my life; yet I read continually in the newspapers the charge
that I am in the business of muck-raking for money. I have
read such insinuations even in the "New York Times"!

Also I had another experience which threw light on the
attitude of the great metropolitan newspapers to the subject of
money. It is the custom of publishers to sell to newspaper
syndicates what are called the "post-publication serial rights"
of a book. "The Jungle" having become an international sen-
sation, there was keen bidding for these serial rights, and they
were finally sold to the "New York American" for two
thousand dollars, of which the author received half. Forth-
with the editorial writers of both the Hearst pkpers in New
York, the "American" and the "Evening Journal," began to
sing the praises of "The Jungle." You will recall the patron-
izing tone in which Arthur Brisbane had spoken of my charges
against the Chicago packers. But now suddenly Brisbane lost
all his distrust of my competence as an authority on stock-
yards. In the "Evening Journal" for May 29, 1906, 'there

44 The Brass Check

appeared a double-column editorial, running over into another
double column, celebrating "The Jungle" and myself in em-
phatic capitals, and urging the American people to read my
all-important revelations of the infamies of the Beef Trust :

In his book — which ought to be read by at least a million
Americans — Mr. Sinclair traces the career of one family. It is a
book that does for modern INDUSTRIAL slavery what "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" did for black slavery. But the work is done far better
and more accurately in "The Jungle" than in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Mr. Sinclair lived in the stockyards. He saw how the men that
work there are treated, how the people that buy dreadful, diseased
products are treated. HE TOLD THE TRUTH SIMPLY AND
CONVINCINGLY. He went there to study life, not merely to tell
a story.

As a result of the writing of this book, of the horror and the
shame it has aroused, there is a good prospect that the Beef Trusty
devilries will be CHECKED at least, and one hideous phase of modern
life at least modiiied

Meanwhile, the public should be thankful to Mr. Sinclair for the
public service he is rendering, and his book "The Jungle" should sell
as no book has sold in America since "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

And then on May 31st, two days later, appeared another^
editorial of the same character, conveying to the readers of
the "Evening Journal" the fact that they might read this
wonderful novel in the Hearst newspapers; the first chapter
would be published in both the "Evening Journal" and the
"American," and after that the complete story would run in
the "American." The ordinary capitals used by Mr. Brisbane
in his editorials were not sufficient in this crisis; he used a.
couple of sizes larger — almost an advertising poster. I quote
the closing paragraphs from his editorial :

It will please our readers to know that for the right to publish
Mr. Sinclair's book serially in our newspapers — which includes no
interest whatever in its publication in book form — we pay to him an
amount of money exceeding all that he has been able to earn in six
years of hard literary work.

This newspaper, which has opposed the Beef Trust and its in-
iquities for years, and which first published the facts and the affidavits
that form part of Mr. Sinclair's indictment, rejoices that this young
man should have had the will, the courage and the ability to write a
work that HAS FORCED NATIONAL ATTENTION, including the
attention of the President of the United States

We urge that you read the first installment of Mr. Sinclair's
book in this newspaper to-day, and that you continue reading it daily
as the various instalhnents appear in THE AMERICAN.

CHAPTER VII
JACKALS AND A CARCASE

Roosevelt had hoped to get the new inspection bill through
Congress without giving out the report of his commission. But
the packers and their employes in Congress blocked his bill,
and so finally the report was given out, and caused a perfect
whirlwind of public indignation. The packers, fighting for
their profits, made their stand in the Agricultural Committees
of the House, which apparently they owned completely. Cour-
teous hearings were granted to every kind of retainer of the
Beef Trust, while the two representatives of the President
were badgered on the witness-stand as if they had been
criminals on trial. I sent a telegram to Congressman Wads-
worth of New York, chairman of the committee, asking for a
hearing, and my request was refused. I then wrote a letter
to Congressman Wadsworthy in which I told him what I
thought of him and his committee — which letter was taken
up later by his democratic opponents in his district, and resulted
in his permanent removal from public life.

But meantime, Wadsworth was king. In the fight against
him, I moved my publicity bureau up to New York, and put
three stenographers at work. I worked twenty hours a day
myself — ^nor was I always able to skep the other four hours.
I had broken out of the cage for a few weeks, and I made
the most of my opportunity. I wrote articles, and sent
telegrams, and twice every day, morning and evening, a room-
ful of reporters came to see me. Some of these men became
my friends, and would tell me what the packers were doing
in the New York newspaper-offices, and also with their lobby
in Washington. I recall one amusing experience, which gave
me a glimpse behind the scenes of two rival yellow journals,
the "New York Evening World" and the "New York Evening
Journal."

The "Evening Journal" sent a reporter to see me. Would
I write an article every day, telling what I knew about con-
ditions among working-girls in New York? I signed a con-
tract with the "Journal" for a month or two, and that same

45

48 The Brass Check

evening all the wagons which delivered papers for the "Journal"
were out with huge signs over them: "Upton Sinclair will
write, etc., etc." Then next day came my friend William Din-
widdle, representing the "Evening World." Would I write a
series of articles for the "Evening World"? Certainly I
would, I said, and signed a contract for a number of articles
at five cents a word; so all the wagons of the "World" ap-
peared with the announcement that I would tell in the "World"
what I knew about conditions in the packing-houses of New
York. And the editorial writers of the "Evening World,"
who had hitherto ignored my existence, now suddenly dis-
covered that I was a great man. They put my picture at the
top of their editorial page, celebrating me in this fashion:

A BOOK THAT MADE HISTORY
Not since Byron awoke one morning to find himself famous has

there been such an example of world-wide celebrity won in a day

by a book as has come to Upton Sinclair.

Yesterday unknown, the author of "The Jungle" is to-day a

familiar name on two continents. Paris, London and Berlin know

him only less well than New York and Boston. They know about

him even in far-off Australia.

Forthwith came the man from the "Journal," all but tear-
ing his hair with excitement. What unspeakable treachery
was this I had committed? Was it true that I had promised
to write for the "World," as well as for the "Journal"? I
answered that it was, of course. "But," said this man, "you
gave me an exclusive contract." "I gave you nothing of the
sort," I said, and pulled out the contract to prove it. "But,"
said he, "you promised me personally that it would be an
exclusive contract." "I promised you nothing of the sort,"
I said. "I never thought of such a thing." But he argued and
insisted — I must have known, my common-sense must have
told me that my stories for them were of no value, if at the
same time I was writing for their deadly rival. I was rather
shocked at that statement. Were they entirely interested in
a "scoop," and not at all in the working girls of New York?
"To hell with the working girls of New York!" said the
Hearst reporter ; whereat, of course, I was still more shocked.

For three days this man from the "Journal" and other
men from the "Journal" kept bombarding and besieging me;
and I, poor devil, suffered agonies of embarrassment and dis-
tress, being sensitive, and not able to realize that this was an

Jackals and a Cajrcase 4:7

every-day matter to them — ^they were a pack of jackals trying
to tear a carcase away from another pack of jackals. But
when I stood by my contract with the "Evening World," the
"Journal" dropped its contract, and lost its interest, not merely
in the working-girls of New York, but also in the sins of the
Chicago packers.

The lobbyists of the packers had their way in Washington ;
the meat inspection bill was deprived of all its sharpest teeth,
and in that form Roosevelt accepted it and prepared to let the
subject drop. I was bitterly disappointed, the more so be-
cause he had made no move about the matter which lay nearest
my heart. I had made a remark about "The Jungle" which,
was found amusing — ^that "I aimed at the public's heart and
by accident I hit it in the stomach." It is a fact that I had
not been nearly so interested in the "condemned meat in-
dustry" as in something else. To me the diseased meat graft
had been only one of a hundred varieties of graft which I
saw in that inferno of exploitation. My main concern had
been for the fate of the workers, and I realized with bitterness
that I had been made into a "celebrity," not because the public
cared anything about the sufferings of these workers, but sim-
ply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef ._

I had objected to Roosevelt that he was giving all his at-
tention to the subject of meat-inspection, and none to the
subject of labor-inspection. His answer was that he had
ppwer to remedy the former evils, but no power to remedy the
latter. I tried to persuade him to agitate the question and
obtain the power; but I tried in vain. "The Jungle" caused
the whitewashing of some packing-house walls, and it furnished
jobs for a dozen or two lady-manicurists, but it left the wage-
slaves in those huge brick packing-boxes exactly where they
were before. Ten years later the war broke out, and as these
wage-slaves became restive, an investigation was made. Here
are a few paragraphs describing the adventures of the Federal
investigators :

The first four homes brought expressions of horror from the
women of the party, dark, insanitary, pest-ridden rooms, and foodless
kitchens.

Mrs. Belbine Skupin. Working^ in the yards. The six Skupin
children in their home at 4819 Laflin Street, hugging the stove and
waitjng for "mother to return." "I didn't think such things existed
outside the books," said one indignant young lady visitor, Miss Walsh.

In one home, seven children found. Young-sst, a baby of fourteen

48 The Brass Check

months; oldest, a boy of eight years. Baby "mothered" by girl of
four. Father and mother work in stock-yards. Children had no shoes
or stockings and flimsy underwear. No food in house except pot
of weak coffee, loaf of rye bread and kettle containing mess of
cabbage. But in the basement was a 'conservation' card, bearing the
motto "Don't waste fo9d."

I look back upon this campaign, to which I gave three years
of brain and soul-sweat, and ask what I really accomplished.
Old Nelson Morris died of a broken conscience. I took a few
millions away from him, and from the Armours and the
Swifts — giving them to the Junkers of East Prussia, and to
Paris bankers who were backing, enterprises to pack meat in the
Argentine. I added a hundred thousand readers to "Every-
body's Magazine," and a considerable number to the "New
York Times." I made a fortune and a reputation for Double-
day, Page and Company, which immediately became one of
the most conservative publishing-houses in America — using
"The Jungle" money to promote the educational works of
Andrew Carnegie, and the autobiography of John D. Rocke-
feller, anrfthe obscene ravings of the Reverend Thomas Dixon,
and the sociological bunkum of Gerald Stanley Lee. I took
my next novel to Doubleday, Page and Company, and old
Walter Page was enthusiastic for it and wanted to publish it ;
but the shrewd young business-men saw that "The Metropolis"
was not going to be popular with the big trust companies and
insurance companies which fill up the advertising pages of the
"World's Work." They told me that "The Metropolis" was
not a novel, but a piece of propaganda; it was not "art." I
looked them in the eye and said : "You are announcing a new
novel by Thomas Dixon. Is that 'art' ?"

Quite recently I tried them again with "King Coal," and
they did not deny that "King Coal" was "art." But they said :
"We think you had better find some publisher who is animated
by a great faith." It is a phrase which I shall remember as
long as I live; a perfect phrase, which any comment would
spoil. I bought up the plates of "The Jungle," which Double-
day, Page and Company had allowed to go out of print — ^not
being "animated by a great faith." I hope some time to issue
the book in a cheap edition, and to keep it in circulation until
the wage-slaves of the Beef Trust have risen and achieved
their freedom. Meantime, it is still being read — and still being
lied about. I have before me a clipping from a Seattle

Jackals and a Carcase 49

paper.^ Some one has written to ask if "The Jungle" is a
true book. The editor replies, ex cathedra, that President
Roosevelt made an investigation of the charges of "The
Jungle," and thoroughly disproved them all !

And again, here is my friend Edwin E. Slosson, literary
editor of the "Independent," a man who has sense enough to
know better than he does. He reviews "The Profits of Re-
ligion" in this brief fashion:

The author _ of "The Jungle" has taken to muck-raking the
churches — with similar success at unearthing malodorous features and
similar failure to portray a truthful picture.

I write to Slosson, just as I wrote to the "New York Eve-
ning Post," to ask what investigation he has made, and what
evidence he can produce to back up his charge that "The
Jungle" is not a "truthful picture" ; and there comes the sur-
prising reply that it had never occurred to Slosson that I
myself meant "The Jungle" for a truthful pictut-e. I had not
portrayed the marvelous business efficiency of the Stockyards,
their wonderful economies, etc. ; and no picture that failed
to do that could claim to be truthful! That explanation ap-
parently satisfied my friend Slosson, but it did not satisfy the
readers of the "Independent" — for the reason that Slosson
did not give them an opportunity to read it! He did not
publish or mention my protest, and he left his readers to
assume, as they naturally would, that the "Independent" con-
sidered that I had exaggerated the misery of the Stockyards
workers.

CHAPTER VIII
THE LAST ACT

I am telling this story chronologically, but in dealing with
a subject like "The Jungle" it seems better to skip ahead and
close the matter up. There was a last act of this Packingtown
drama, about which the public has never heard. The limelight
had been turned out, the audience had gone home, and this
act was played in darkness and silence.

A year had passed and I was living at Point Pleasant, New
Jersey, when W. W. Harris, editor of the Sunday magazine-
section of the "New York Herald," came to call on me, and
explained a wonderful idea. He wanted me to go to Chicago
secretly, as I had gone before, and make another investigation
in the Stockyards, and write for the "New York Herald" an
article entitled "Packingtown a Year Later."

He was a young editor, full of enthusiasm. He said : "Mr.
Sinclair, I know enough about the business-game to feel quite
sure that all the reforms we read about are fakes. What
do you think?"

I answered, "I know they are fakes, because not a week
passes that I don't get a letter from some of the men in
Packingtown, telling me that things are as bad as ever." And
I showed him a letter, one sentence of which I recall: "The
new coat of whitewash has worn off the filthy old walls, and
the only thing left is the row of girls who manicure the nails
of those who pack the sliced dried beef in front of the eyes
of the visitors!"

"Exactly !" said the editor. "It will make the biggest news-
paper story the 'Herald' has ever published."

"Pbssibly," said I. "But are you sure the 'Herald' will
publish it?" ■-

"No worry about that," said he. "I am the man who has
the say."

"But where is Bennett?"

"Bennett is in Bermuda."

"Well," said I, "do you imagine you could sign a contract

50

The Last Act 51

with me, and put such a job through, and get such a story on
the 'Herald' presses without Bennett's getting word of it?"

"Bennett will be crazy for the story," said the editor.
"Bennett is a newspaper man."

"Well, you have to show me."

I explained that I was writing another novel, and was not
willing to stop, but my friend Mrs. Ella Reeve Bloor, who
had represented me with Roosevelt's investigating committee,
would do the work. Let the "Herald" send Mrs. Bloor and
one 'of its own reporters, to make sure that Mrs. Bloor played
the game straight; and when the investigation was made, I
would write an introductory statement, which would lend my
name to the articles, and make them as effective as if I had
gone to Packingtown myself. But first, before I would trouble
Mrs. Bloor, or do anything at all about the matter, the editor
must put it before Bennett and show me his written consent
to the undertaking. "I am busy,'" I said. "I don't care to
waste my time upon a wild goose chase." The editor agreed
that that was reasonable, and took his departure.

James Gordon Bennett, the younger, was the son of the
man who had founded the "New York Herald," establishing
the sensational, so-called "popular" journalism which Pulitzer
and Hearst afterwards took up and carried to extremes.
Bennett, the elder, had been a real newspaper man; his son
had been a debauche and spendthrift in his youth, and was
now in his old age an embittered and cynical invalid, travelling
in his yacht from Bermuda to the Riviera, and occasionally
resorting to the capitals of Europe for fresh dissipations. He
had made his paper the organ of just such men as himself;
that is to say, of cosmopolitan cafe loungers, with one eye
on the stock-ticker and the other on their "scotch and soda."
And this was the publisher who was to take up a new crusade
against the Beef Trust !

But to my surprise, the editor came back with a cablegram
from Bennett, bidding him go ahead with the story. So I put
the matter before Mrs. Bloor, and she and the "Herald"
reporter went out to the Stockyards and spent about two
months. Mrs. Bloor disguised hers'elf as a Polish woman,
and both she and the reporter obtained jobs in half a dozen
different places in the yards. They came back, reporting that
conditions were worse than ever ; they wrote their story, enough
to fill an eight-page Sunday supplement, with numerous photo-

sa The Bkass Check

graphs of the scenes described. There was a conference of
the editorial staff of the "Herald," which agreed that the story-
was the greatest the paper had ever had in its history. It
must be read by Mr. Bennett, the staff decided. So it was
mailed to Bermuda — which was the last ever seen or heard
of it!

Week after week I waited for the story to appear. When
I learned that it was not to appear I was, of course, some-
what irritated. I threatened to sue the "Herald" for payment
for the time I had spent writing the introduction, but I found
myself confronting this dilemma : the enthusiastic young editor
was a Socialist, and if I made trouble, he was the one who
would be hurt. So I decided to forego my money-claim on
the "Herald." But I would not give up the story — ^that was a
public matter. The public had been fooled into believing that
there had been reforms in Packingtown; the public was con-
tinuing to eat tubercular beef-steaks, and I was bound that
somehow or other the public should get the facts. I wrote up
the story and submitted it to other newspapers in New York.
Not one would touch it. I submitted it to President Roosevelt,
and he replied that he was sorry, but was too busy to take
the matter up. "Teddy" was a shrewd politician, and knew
how hard it is to warm up dead ashes, how little flavor there
is in re-cooked food.

I knew, of course, that I could publish the story in the
Socialist papers. That has always been my last recourse. But
I wanted this story to reach the general public ; I was blindly
determined about it. There was a big Socialist meeting at the
Hippodrome in New York, and I went up to the city and asked
for fifteen minutes at this meeting. I told the story to an
audience of five or six thousand people, and with reporters
from every New York paper in front of me. Not a single
New York paper, except the Socialist paper, mentioned the
matter next morning.

But still I would not give up. I said : "This is a Chicago
story. If I tell it in Chicago, public excitement may force it
into the press." So I telegraphed some of my friends in
Chicago. I planned the most dramatic thing I could think of
— I asked them to get me a meeting in the Stockyards district
and they answered that they would.

Mind you, a little over a year before I had put Packing-
town on the map of the world ; I had made Packingtown and

The Last Act 53

its methods the subject of discussion at the dinner-tables of
many countries ; and now I was coming back to Packingtown
for the first time since that event. There was a big hall,
jammed to the very doors with Stockyards workers. You will
pardon me if I say that they made it clear that they were glad
to have me come there. And to this uproarious audience
I told the story of the "New York Herald" investigation, and
what had been discovered. I stood, looking into the faces of
chese workingmen and women, and said : "You are the people
who know about these matters. Are they true?" There
was a roar of assent that rocked the building. I said: "/
know they are true, and you know they are true. Now tell
me this, ought they be made known to the American people ?
Would you like them to be made known to the American
people ?" And again there was a roar of assent.

Then I looked over the edge of the platform to a row of
tables, where sat the reporters looking up, and I talked to
them for a while. I said: "You are newspaper men; you
know a story when you see it. Tell me now — ^tell me straight —
is not this a story ?" The newspaper men nodded and grinned.
They knew it was a "story" all right. "The public would
like to read this — ^the public of Chicago and the public of all
the rest of America — would they not?" And again the
newspaper men nodded and grinned. "Now," said I, "play
fiir with me; give me a square deal, so far as you are con-
cerned. Write this story just as I have told it tonight.
Write it and turn it in and see what happens. Will you do
that?" And they pledged themselves, the audience saw them
pledge themselves. And so the test was made, as perfect a
test as anyone could conceive. And next morning there was
just one newspaper in Chicago which mentioned my speech
in the Stockyards district — the "Chicago Socialist." Not one
line in any other newspaper, morning or evening, in Chicago !

A little later I happened to be on the Pacific coast, and
made the test once more. I was putting on some plays,
and it happened that a newspaper had played me a dirty trick
that morning. So in my curtain-speech I said what I thought
of American newspapers, and told this Chicago story. Just
one neVspaper in San Francisco published a line about the
matter, and that was the "Bulletin," edited by Fremont Older,
who happened to be a personal friend, and one of the few
independent newspaper editors in America. Excepting for

54 The Brass Check

Socialist papers, the "Bulletin" has the distinction of being
the only American newspaper which has ever printed that
story.

I say the only American newspaper; I might say the
only newspaper in the world. Some time afterwards there
was a scandal about American meat in England, and the
"London Daily Telegraph" requested me to cable them "with-
out limit" any information I had as to present conditions in
Packingtown. I sent them a couple of thousand words of
this "New York Herald" story, but they did not publish a
line of it. They had, of course, the fear that they might
be sued for libel by the "Herald." It is no protection to
you in England that you are publishing the truth, for the
maxim of the law of England is: "The greater the truth
the greater the libel." Also, no doubt, they were influenced
by newspaper solidarity — a new kind of honor among thieves.

CHAPTER IX
AIMING AT THE PUBLIC'S HEART

The publication of "The Jungle" had brought me pitiful
letters from workingmen and women in others of our great
American slave-pens, and I went to Ridgway of "Every-
body's" with the proposition to write a series of articles deal-
ing with the glass industry, the steel industry, the coal-mines,
the cotton-mills, the lumber-camps. I offered to do all the
work of investigating myself; my proposition was accepted
and I set to work.

I went first to the glass-works of South Jersey, where
I saw little children working all night in eleven-hour shifts,
carrying heavy trays of red-hot glass bottles. Other children
worked at the same tasks in the blazing heat of summer,
and sometimes they fainted and had their eyes burned out
by hot glass. When the State child-labor inspector came, he
was courteous enough to notify the superintendent of the
glass-works in advance, and so the under-age children were
collected in the passageway through which fresh air was
blown to the furnaces. I told the story of one little Italian
boy who had to walk several miles on the railroad-track to
his home after his all-night labors. He fell asleep from
exhaustion on the way and the train ran over him. I sub-
mitted this article to "Everybody's," who sent one of their
editors to check up my facts. I recall one remark in his
report, which was that he could not see that the little boys
in the glass-factories were any worse off than those who sold
newspapers on the streets of New York. My answer was
that this was not a reason for altering the glass-article; it
was a reason for adding an article about the news-boys!

Meantime I was investigating the steel-mills of Alleghany
County. I spent a long time at this task, tracing out some
of the ramifications of graft in the politics and journalism of
Pittsburgh. The hordes of foreign labor recruited abroad and
crowded into these mills were working, some of them twelve
hours a day for seven days in the week, and were victims
of every kind of oppression and extortion. An elaborate

55

56 The Brass Check

system of spying crushed out all attempt at organization. I
talked with the widow of one man, a Hungarian, who had
had the misfortune to be caught with both legs under the
wheels of one of the gigantic travelling cranes. In order to
save his legs it would have been necessary to take the crane
to pieces, which would have cost several thousand dollars;
so they ran over his legs and cut them ofi and paid him two
hundred dollars damages.

This article also I brought to "Everybody's," and watched
the process of the chilling of their editorial feet. What in-
fluences were brought to bear to cause their final break with
me, I do not know; but this I have observed in twenty years
of watching — ^there are few magazines that dare to attack the
Steel Trust, and there are no politicians who dare it. Our
little fellows among the corporations, our ten and hundred
million dollar trusts, are now and then fair game for some
muck-raker or demagogue; but our billion dollar corporation
is sacred, and if any one does not know it, he is taught it
quickly.

While I am on the subject of "Everybody's," I might as
well close my account with them. They had gained ^hc
purpose of their "muck-raking" campaign — that is, half a
million readers at two dollars per year each, and one or two
hundred pages of advertising each month at five hundred
dollars a page. So year by year one observed their youthful
fervors dying. They found it possible to discover good things
in American politics and industry. They no longer appreciate
my style of muck-raking; they do not stop their presses to
put on my articles. Again and again I have been to them,
and they are always friendly and polite, but they always
turn me down. Three or four years ago, I remember, they
published an editorial, telling what wonderful people they
were; they had been over their files, and gave a long list of
the campaigns which they had undertaken for the benefit
of the American people. Whereupon I wrote them a letter,
asking them to take up this list and test it by the one real
test that counted. From the point of view of a magazine, of
course, it suffices if the public is told it is being robbed. That
brings readers to the magazine ; but what good does it do the
public, if the robbery continues, and if the magazine drops
the subject, and makes no move to get back the stolen money,
or even to stop the future stealings? Let "Everybody's"

Aiming at the Public's Heart 57

apply the one test that had any meaning — let them point out
one instance where their exposures had resulted in changing
the ownership of a dollar from the hands of predatory ex-
ploiters to the hands of their victims!

I was in position to bear witness in one of the cases
cited by "Everybody's Magazine." I knew that the con-
demned meat industry was still flourishing, I knew that the
wage-slaves of Packingtown were still being sweated and
bled. I knew also that the campaign of Tom Lawson had
brought no result. "Everybody's" had clamored for laws to
prevent stock-gambling and manipulation, but no such laws
had been passed, and "Everybody's" had dropped the subject.
What had the magazine to say about the matter? Needless to
add, the magazine had nothing to say about it; they did not
answer my letter, they did not publish my letter. They have
been taken over by the Butterick Publishing Company, and
are an adjunct of the dress-pattern trade, not an organ oi
public welfare. ' For years I continued to look over the
magazine month by month, lured by vain hopes; it has been
several years since I have found an article with any trace of
social conscience. They have just finished a series of articles
on Aft^r-the-War Reconstruction, which for futility were un-
exampled; after glancing over these articles, I removed
"Everybody's" from that small list of magazines whose con-
tents repay the labor of turning over the pages.

CHAPTER X
A VOICE FROM RUSSIA

For the sake of consecutiveness in this. narrative, I have
put off mention of a newspaper sensation which occurred dur-
ing my "Jungle" campaign, and which I happened to observe
from the inside. I am glad to tell this story, because it gives
the reader a chance to hear about the troubles of another man
than Upton Sinclair.

First, picture to yourself the plight of the Russian people
in the spring of 1906 : one or two hundred million people held
down by the most brutal tyranny of modern times, all knowl"
edge withheld from them, their leaders, their best brains and
consciences systematically exiled, slaughtered, tortured to
death in dungeons. The people had been led into an im-
perialist war with Japan, and after a humiliating defeat
were making an effort at freedom. This effort was being
crushed with constantly increasing ferocity, and the cry of
despair of the Russian people now echoed throughout the
whole of civilization.

Among these enslaved masses was one man who by titanic
genius had raised himself to world fame. Nor had fame spoiled
or seduced him; he stood a heroic figure, championing the
rights of his people before the world. He came to America to
plead for them, and to raise funds for their cause. Never since
the days of Kossuth had there been an appeal which should
have roused the American people to greater enthusiasm than
this visit of Maxim Gorky.

A group of American Socialists went out on the revenue-
cutter "Hudson" to meet Gorky's steamer in the harbor ; among
them I remember GaylOrd Wilshire, Abraham Cahan, Leroy
Scott. There were also reporters from all the newspapers,
and on the way down the bay a reporter for the "World"
came to Wilshire and asked if he had heard a report to the
effect that the lady who was coming as Gorky's wife, Madame
Andreieva, was not legally his wife. Wilshire answered by
explaining to the reporter the situation existing in Russia:
that marriage and divorce there were a graft of the orthodox

58

A Voice feom Russia 59

church. It cost a good deal to get married, and it cost still
more to get a divorce ; the money you paid went to the support
of fat and sensual priests, who were occupied in conducting
pogroms, and keeping the peasantry of the country in super-
stition and slavery. Naturally, a;ll Russian revolutionists
repudiated this church, and paid it no money, for marriage or
divorce or any other purpose. The revolutionists had their
own marriage code which they recognized. Gorky had com-
plied with this code, and regarded Madame Andreieva as his
wife, and everybody who knew him regarded her as his wife,
and had no idea that she was not his wife. The reporters
of other papers had gathered about, listening to this explana-
tion, and they all agreed that the American public had no
concern with the marriage customs of Russia, and that this
story had nothing to do with Gorky's present mission.

Gorky went to the Hotel Belleclaire, as Wilshire's guest.
From the moment of his arrival he was the object of several
dififerent intrigues. In the first place there was the embassy
of the Tsar, who was hanging and shooting Gorky's par-
tisans in Russia, and naturally spared no labor or treasure
to destroy him in America. A spy of the embassy after-
wards confessed that it was he who took the story about
Gorky's unorthodox marriage to the New York newspapers,
and who later on succeeded in persuading the "World" to
make use of it. v.

Then there were representatives of the various newspaper
syndicates and magazines and publishing-houses, which wanted
Gorky's writings, and were besieging his friends. And then
there were two different groups of radicals, competing for his
favor — ^the "Friends of Russian Freedom," settlement-workers
and folks of that sort, many of whom have since become
Socialists, but who in those days were carefully bourgeois
and painfully respectable, confining their revolutionary aims
strictly to Russia; and the American Socialists, who knew
that Gorky was an internationalist like themselves, and wished
to use his prestige for the benefit of the American movement,
as well as for the Russian movement.

It happened that at this time Moyer and Hay>yood were
being tried for their lives, and this case was the test upon
which the right and left wings were dividing. Gaylord
Wilshire, who was then publishing a Socialist magazine in
New York, drafted a telegram of sympathy to Moyer and

60 The Brass Check

Haywood, and submitted it to Madame Andreieva, proposing
that Gorky should sign it. Which, of course, threw the
"Friends of Russian Freedom" into a panic. If Gorky sup-
ported Moyer and Haywood, he would get no money from
the liberal millionaires of New York, the Schiffs and the
Strausses and the Guggenheims and the rest, who might be
persuaded to subsidize' the Russian revolution, but who had
no interest in industrial freedom for America! The matter
was explained to Gorky, and he gave his decision : he was an
international Socialist, and he would protest against the rail-
roading of two radical labor leaders to the gallows. He
signed the telegram, and it was sent, and next morning, of
course, the New York newspapers were horrified, and the
Russian Embassy got busy, and President Roosevelt can-
celled a reception for Gorky at the White House!

But the worst mistake that Grorky made was in his con-
tracts for his writings. He fell into the very same trap
that I have told about in Chapter VH — ^he signed a contract
with the "New York Journal," and thereby incurred the
furious enmity of the "New York World"! So then the
editors of the "World" remembered that story which they
had got from the Russian Embassy; or maybe the Embassy
reminded them of it again. By this story they could destroy
entirely the news-value of Gorky's writings; they could
render worthless the contract with their hated rival! That
incidentally they would help to hold one or two hundred
million people in slavery and torment for an indefinite number
of years — ^that weighed with the staff of the "World" not a
feather-weight.

Next morning the "World" came out with a scare-story
on the front page, to the effect that Maxim Gorky had in-
sulted the American people by coming to visit them and
introducing his mistress as his wife. And instantly, of
course, the news-channels were opened wide — the Russian
Embassy saw to that. (Do you recollect the fact that the
general manager of the Associated Press went to Russia and
received a decoration from the Tsar?)

From Maine to California, American provincialism quiv-
ered with indignation and horror. That night Gorky and
his "mistress" were invited to leave the Hotel Belleclaire.
They went to another hotel, and were refused admittance
there. They went to an apartment-house and were refused ad-

A Voice from Russia 61

mittance there. They spent a good part of the small hours of
the morning wandering about the streets of New York, until
friends picked them up and whisked them away to a place
which has never been revealed. And next morning all this
shameful and humiliating story was flaunted on the front
page of the newspapers — especially, of course, the "New
York World."

A perfect flood of abuse was poured ov6r the head of
poor, bewildered Gorky; the clergy began to preach sermons
about him, and our great, wise, virtuous statesmen, who
were maintaining a "House of Mirth" in Albany, and high-
class houses of prostitution in every State capital and in the
National capital, joined in denunciations of this display of
"foreign licentiousness." So Gorky's mission fell absolutely
flat. His writings were scorned, and all he had to send to
his heroic friends in Russia was the few dollars he himself
was able to earn. I saw him several times during the year
or two he stayed in America, first on Staten Island and
then in the Adirondacks: a melancholy and pitiful figure,
this Russian giant who had come to make his appeal to
the heart of a great and liberal people, and had been knocked
down and torn to pieces by the obscene vultures of com-
mercial journalism. Even now the story is raked up, to
serve the slave-drivers of the world. Gorky is defending his
revolution against allied world-capitalism ; the United States
Senate is ofiScially collecting scandal concerning the Bol-
sheviki ; and Senator Knute Nelson, aged servant of privilege
from Minnesota, puts these words on the Associated Press
wires: "That horrible creature Maxim Gorky — ^he is about
as immoral as a man can be."

CHAPTER XI
A VENTURE IN CO-OPERATION

The next experience with which I have to "deal is the
Helicon Home Colony. I will begin by telling very briefly
what this was : an attempt to solve the problem of the small
family of moderate means, who have one or two children and
are not satisfied with the sort of care these children get
from ignorant servant-maids, nor with the amount of play-
space they can find in a city apartment. I wrote an article
in the "Independent," pointing out that the amount of money
which these people spent in maintaining separate kitchens
and separate nurseries would, if expended in co-operation,
enable them to have expert managers, and a kindergartner
instead of a servant-girl to take care of their children. I
proposed that a group of forward-looking people should get
together and establish what might be called a home-club,
or a hotel owned and run by its guests. There was nothing
so very radical about this idea, for up in the Adirondacks
are a number of clubs whose members rent cottages in the
summertime and eat their meals in a club dining-room. Why
might there not be in the same community a school, owned
and run by the parents of the children?

The economic importance of the idea, if it could be made
to work, would be beyond exaggerating. There are twenty
million families in America, maintaining twenty million
separate kitchens, with twenty million stoves and twenty
million fires, twenty million sets of dishes to be washed,
twenty million separate trips to market to be made. The
waste involved in this is beyond calculation; I believe that
when our system of universal dog-eat-dog has been abolished,
and the souls of men and women have risen upon the wings
of love and fellowship, they will look back on us in our
twenty million separate kitchens as we look upon the Eskimos
in their filthy snow-huts lighted with walrus-blubber.

Here was a man who had made thirty thousand dollars
from a book, risking the whole of it, and giving all his time
to an effort to demonstrate that fifty or sixty intelligent people

62

A Ventuee in Co-operation €3

might solve this problem, might learn to co-operate in their
housekeeping, and save a part of their time for study and
play. Here were the newspaper-editors of New York City,
who were supposed to re|)ort the experiment, and who be-
haved like a band of Brazilian Indians, hiding in the woods
about Helicon Hall and shooting the inmates full of poisoned
arrows. Upton Sinclair and his little group of co-woi:kers
became a public spectacle, a free farce-comedy for the great
Metropolis of Mammon. The cynical newspaper editors,
whose first maxim in life is that nothing can ever be changed,
picked out their cleverest young wits and sent them to spy in
our nursery, and eavesdrop in our pantry, and report all the
absurdities they could see or hear or invent.

The procedure was so dishonest that even the reporters
themselves sickened of it. There was one young man who
used to come every Sunday, to write us up in Monday's
"New York Sun"; for, you see, on Mondays there is generally
a scarcity of news, and we served as comic relief to the
sermons of the Fifth Avenue clergy. The "Sun," of course,
treated us according to its tradition — ^as in the old days
it had treated "Sorosis" and the "Populists." "Mr. Sinclair,"
said this young reporter, "you've got an awfully interesting
place here, and I like the people, and feel like a cur to have
to write as I do; but you know what the 'Sun' is." I
answered that I knew. "Well," ^said the reporter, "can't you
think of something amusing that I can write about, that won't
do any harm?" So I thought. I had brought a collie dog
from my farm at Princeton, and three times this dog had
strayed or been stolen. "You might write about the dog
instead of about the people," I said. So next morning there
were two or three columns in the "New York Sun," making
merry over this latest evidence of the failure of co-operative
housekeeping ! Upton Sinclair's dog refused to stay at Helicon
Hall!

And then there was the famous adventure with Sadakichi
Hartmann. One day there arrived a post-card, reading:
"Sadakichi Hartmann will call." The announcement had a
sort of royal sound, and I made inquiry and ascertained that
I ought to have known who Sadakichi Hartmailn was. Jui^t
about dinner-time there appeared two men and a girl, all
three clad in soiled sweaters. One of the men was the
Japanese-German art-critic, and the other was Jo Davidson,

64 The Beass Check

the sculptor, a lovable fellow, who made sketches of us and
kept us entertained. But Hartmann had evidently been drink-
ing, and when he told us that he had come to spend the night,
we assured him quite truthfully that we had lio room and
could not accommodate him. There happened to be a meeting
of the executive committee that night, with important problems
to be settled; and when I came out from the committee-
room at eleven o'clock, I found the art-critic making prep-
arations to spend the night on one of the couches in our
living-room. He was told politely that he must leave, where-
upon there was a scene. He spent a couple of hours arguing
and denouncing, and next day he wrote a letter to all the
newspapers, telling how he and his companions had been
turned out of Helicon Hall at one o'clock in the morning,
and had spent the night wandering about on the Palisades.

And then there was a gentleman from Boston via Mont-
martre, Alvan F. Sanborn by name. He had written a book
about the revolutionists of Paris, looking at them through
a microscope as if they had been so many queer kinds of
bugs; and now he came to turn his microscope on us. He
proved to be a gentleman with a flowing soft necktie and
a sharp suspicious nose. He accepted otu- hospitality, and
thai went away and criticized the cooking of our beans. His
article appeared in the "Evening Transcript" of Boston, a
city which is especially sensitive on the subject of beans.
Mr. Sanborn found our atmosphere that of a bourgeois board-
ing-house. I have no doubt it was a different atmosphere from
that of the Quartier Latin, where Mr. Sanborn's standards
of taste had been formed.

Also there were the two Yale boys who ran away from
college and came to tend our furnaces, and then ran back to
college and wrote us up in the "New York Sim." They were
Allan Updegraff and Sinclair Lewis, both of whom have
grown up to be novelists. What they wrote about us was
playful, and I would have shared in the fun, but for the
fact that some of our members had their livings to think
about. For example, there was a professor of philosophy
at Columbia. Once or twice a week he had to give lectures
to the young ladies at Barnard, and the Dean of Barnard
was a lady of stern and unbending dignity, and after those
articles had appeared our professor would quiver every time
he saw her. We were trying in Helicon Hall not to have

A Venture in Co-opebation 65

servants, in the sense of a separate class of inferior animals
whom we put off by themselves in the basement of the
building. We tried to treat our workers as human beings.
Once a week we had a dance, and everybody took part,
and the professor of philosophy danced with the two pretty
Irish girls who waited on the table. The fact that his wife
was present ought to have made a difference, even to a
Dean, but the stories in the "Sun" did not mention the wife.

So before long we began to notice dark hints in the
newspapers; such esoteric phrases as "Sinclair's love-nest."
I have since talked with newspaper men and learned that it
was generally taken for granted by the newspaper-world
that Helicon Hall was a place which I had formed for the
purpose of having many beautiful women about me. Either
that, or else a diseased craving for notoriety! I remember
Ridgway of "Everybody's" asking the question: "Couldn't
you find some less troublesome way of advertising yourself ?"

Now, I" was still naive about many things in the world,
but I assure the reader that I had by this time learned enough
to have kept myself securely on the front pages of the news-
papers, if that had been my aim in life. A group of capitalists
had come to me with a proposition to found a model meat-
packing establishment; they had offered me three hundred
thousand dollars worth of stock for the use of my name,
and if I had accepted that offer and become the head of one
of the city's commercial show-places, lavishing full-page
advertisements upon the newspapers, I might have had the
choicest and most dignified kind of publicity, I might have
been another Nicholas Murray Butler or George Harvey; I
might have been invited to be the chief orator at banquets
of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Civic Fed-
eration, and my eloquence would have been printed to the
extent of columns; I might have joined the Union League
Club and the Century Club, and my name would have gone
upon the list of people about whom no uncomplimentary news
may be published under any circumstances. At the same time
I might have kept one or more apartments on Riverside Drive,
with just as many beautiful women in them as I wished, and
no one would have criticized me, no newspaper would have
dropped hints about "love-nests." I have known many men,
prominent capitalists and even prominent publishers and
editors, who have done this, and you have never known about

5

66 The Brass Check

it — ^you would not know about it in ten thousand life-times,
under our present system of predatory Journalism.

But what I did was to attack the profit-system — even the
profit in news. I refused to go after money, and when
money came to me, I spent it forthwith on propaganda. So
it comes about that you think of me — ^at best as a sort of
scarecrow, at worst as a free-lover and preacher of sexual
riot.

So far as Helicon Hall was concerned, we were a gather-
ing of decent literary folk, a number of us not Socialists or
cranks of any sort, several of the ladies coming from the
South, where standards of ladyhood are rigid. There were
Professor William Noyes of Teachers' College and his wife ;
Prof. W. P. Montague of Columbia, and his wife; Edwin
Bjorkman, the critic, editor of the Modem Drama Series,
and during the war director of the government's propaganda
in Scandinavian countries ; his wife, Frances Maule Bjorkman,
a well-known suffrage worker ; Mrs. Grace MacGowan Cooke,
the novelist, and her sister Alice MacGowan; Edwin S.
Potter, now assistant editor of the "Searchlight on Congress,"
and his wife; Michael Williams and his wife. Williams has
since turned into a Roman Catholic, and has written an
autobiography, "The High Romance," in which he pokes
fun at our Socialist colony, but he is honest enough to omit
hints about "free love."

What our people did was to work hard at their typewriters,
and spend their spare time in helping with our community
problems. We had many, and we didn't solve them all, by
any means; it was not easy to find competent managers, and
we were all novices ourselves. We had only six months to
work in, and that' was not time enough. But we certainly
did solve the "servant-problem"; from first to last those who
did the monotonous household work of our colony conducted
themselves with dignity and sympathy. Also we solved the
problem of the children; we showed that the parents of our
fourteen children could co-operate. Our children had a little
world of their own, and did their own work and lived their
own community life, and were happier than any fourteen
children I have seen before or since. Also we had a social
life, which no one who took part in will forget. Such
men as William James and John Dewey came to see us
frequently, and around our big four-sided fireplace you heard

A Venture in Co-operation ,6''

discussions by authorities on almost every topic of present-
day importance. But nobody read about these discussions
in the newspapers; the pubHshers of newspapers were not
selling that sort of news.

I look back on Helicon Hall to-day, and this is the way I
feel about it. I have lived in the future ; I have known those
wider freedoms and opportunities that the future will grant
to all men and women. Now by harsh fate I have been seized
and dragged back into a lower order of existence, and com-
manded to spend the balance of my days therein. I know that
the command is irrevocable, and I make the best of my fate —
I manage to keep cheerful, and to do my appointed task; but
nothing can alter the fact in my own mind — I have lived in
the future, and all things about me seem drab and sordid in
comparison. I feel as you would feel if you were suddenly
taken back to the days when there was no plumbing and when
people used perfume instead of soap.

CHAPTER XII
THE VILLAGE HORSE-DOCTOR

At three o'clock one morning in March there came a
fire and wiped out the Hehcon Home Colony. Everybody
there lost everything, but that did not save us from dark
hints in the newspapers, to the effect that some of our members
had started the fire. The colony had just purchased ropes
to be used as fire-escapes from some remote rooms on the
third floor of the building. It was not mentioned by the
newspapers that the managing committee had been discussing
the need of those ropes for three or four months. For my
part I escaped from my room in the tower of the building
with my night-clothing burned, and part of my hair singed
off, and my feet full of broken glass and burning brands,
which laid me up for two or three weeks.

The "American Magazine" printed an editorial based on
the rumor that the fire had been caused by leaking gas. The
fact that we had defective gas-pipes and not enough fire-
escapes proved to the "American Magazine" that industrial
co-operation was an impossibility! They gave me space to
answer that there was absolutely no evidence that the fire
had been caused by gas-leaks, and that for years the authori-
ties of the town had allowed Helicon Hall to be conducted
under the profit-system as a boarding-school for boys, with
no provision for fire-escapes whatever. They did not allow
me to state that at the time the mysterious fire took place
I had in the building the data of many months of secret in-
vestigation into the armor-plate frauds, whereby the Carnegie
Steel Company had robbed the United States government of
a sum which the government admitted to be seven hundred
thousand dollars, but which I could have proven to be many
millions. I had, for example, the precise designation of a
certain plate (A.619) in the conning-tower of the battleship
"Oregon," which was full of plugged up blow-holes, and
would have splintered like glass if struck by a shell. I had
the originals of the shop-recor4s of many such plates, which
had been doctored in the hand-writings of certain gentlemen

68

The Village Hoese-Doctor 69

now high in the counsels of the Steel Trust. I had enough
evidence to have sent these prominent gentlemen to the peni-
tentiary for life, and I myself came very near being burned
along with it. I put a brief account of these matters into
"The Money-changers," and some of the heads of the Steel
Trust announced that they were going to sue me for libel,
but thought better of it. I shall give some details about the
matter later on, in telling the story of "The Money-changers"
and its adventures.

There was a coroner's inquest over the body of one man
who lost his life in the Helicon Hall fire. This inquest I
attended on crutches, and was cross-questioned for a couple
of hours by the village horse-doctor. Two or three members
of the jury were hostile, and I couldn't understand it, until
near the end of the session it came out. We had had two
organizations at Helicon Hall ; the company, which owned the
property, and the colony, a membership corporation or club,
which leased the property from the company. We had made
this arrangement, because under the law it was the only way
we could keep the right to decide who should have admittance
to the colony. If we had had one corporation, anybody who
bought our stock would have had the right to come and live
with us. But now it appeared that the village horse-doctor
and the village barber and the village grocer suspected the
colony of a dire plot to keep from paying its just debts in
the locality! I made haste to assure these gentlemen that
my own credit was behind the bills, and that everything
would be paid — except the account of one painter who had
contracted to do a job for three hundred dollars and had
rendered a bill for seven hundred.

Also they questioned us closely about moral conditions
in the colony, and brought out some sinister facts, which
were spread on the front pages of the "New York Evening
World" and the "New York Evening Journal." It appeared
that we had not had enough bed-rooms at Helicon hall, and on
the third floor there was a huge studio which had served for
the drawing-classes of the boys' school. It was proposed to
convert this studio into bed-rooms, but first it would be nec-
essary to raise the roof, and this would cost more money
than we had to spare. Our architect had advised us that
the same lumber which would be needed for this work might
serve temporarily to partition off compartments in the studio,

70 The Beass Check

which would serve for sleeping-quarters with curtains in
front. So here at last the newspapers had what they wanted !
Here was something "suggestive," and a coroner's jury thrust-
ing into it a remorseless probe!

As it happened, in those curtained-off compartments there
had slept an elderly widow who had begged to be allowed
to work for us in order to educate her sixteen-year-old son —
who slept in the compartment next to her. Also there was
an old Scotchman, an engineer who had come all the way
across the continent to take charge of our heating-plant; also
a young carpenter who was working on the place, and one or
two others whose names I forget, but all quite decent and
honest working-people whom we had come to know and
respect. It is perfectly obvious that if people wish to be
decent, curtains are sufficient; whereas, if they wish to be
indecent, the heaviest doors will not prevent it: just as a
woman can behave herself in a scanty bathing-suit, or can
misbehave herself though clad in elaborate court-costume.
These considerations, however, were not presented to the
readers of the "New York Evening World" and the "New
York Evening Journal." What they got were the obscene
hints of a village horse-doctor, confirming their impression
that Socialists are moral lepers.

There were forty adults at Helicon Hall, and they did
not live together six months without some gossip and some
unpleasantness. There was a young workingman who spouted
crude ideas on sex, to the indignation of our two pretty Irish
girls, and he was asked to shut up or to leave. There was a
certain doctor, not a Socialist, but an entirely conventional
capitalist gentleman, who left of his own accord after asking
one of the pretty Irish girls to visit his office. Also there
was a man who fell in love with another man's wife. You
cannot run a hotel — not even a co-operative hotel — without
such things happening. Every hotel-manager knows it, and
counts himself lucky indeed if nothing worse happens. I
was told by one of those in charge of the Waldorf-Astoria
in New York that there sits on every floor a woman-clerk
whose duty it is to see who' goes into whose room. Quite
recently I had dinner in a certain gorgeous and expensive
leisure-class hotel in Southern California, and heard sotae
young men of the world, guests of the hotel, discussing what
was going on there : the elderly ladies of fashion who were put-

The Village Hoese-Doctoe 71

ting paint on their cheeks and cutting their dresses half-way
down their backs, and making open efforts to sedi^ce these
young men ; the young matrons of the hotel, who disappeared
for trips into the mountain canyons near by; the married
lady of great wealth, who had been in several scandals,
who caroused all night with half a dozen soldiers and sailors,
supplying them with all the liquor they wanted in spite of
the law, and who finally was asked to leave the hotel — ^not
because of this carousing, but because she failed to pay her
liquor bills.

All this goes on in our fashionable resorts, from California
to Florida via Lake Michigan and Newport. It goes on,
and everybody in the hotels knows that it is going on, in-
cluding the management of the hotels ; but do you read any-
thing about it in the newspapers? Only when it gets into
the law-courts ; and then you get only the personal details —
never the philosophy of it. Never are such facts used to
prove that the capitalist system is a source of debauchery,
prostitution, drunkenness and disease; that it breaks up the
home, and makes true religion and virtue impossible!

For the most part what you read about these leisure-
class hotels in the newspapers is elaborate advertisements of
the hotels and their attractions, together with fatuous and
servile accounts of the social doings of the guests: columns
and columns of stuff about them, what they eat and what
they drink and what they wear, what games they play and
what trophies they win, how much money they have, and
what important positions they fill in the world, and their
opinions on every subject from politics to ping-pong. They
are "society"; they are the people who own the world, and
for whom the world exists, arid in every newspaper-office
there is a definite understanding that so long as these people
keep out of the law-courts, there shall be published no un-
complimentary news concerning them.

I will finish with the subject of Helicon Hall while I am
on it. Seven years later I found myself involved in the
Colorado coal-strike, fighting to break down the boycott of
the capitalist newspapers. A group of young radicals en-
deavored to tell the story of the Ludlow massacre at a street
meeting in Tarrytown, New York, the home of the Rocke-
fellers. They were arrested and thrown into jail, and I
started a campaign in Tarrytown to set them free. Under

72 The Brass Check

these circumstances I became the object of venomous attacks
by the local paper, the "Tarrytown News"; in one of its
editorials the "News" declared that my home in Englewood,
New Jersey, had been raided by the police on account of
"free-love" practices; and this statement was reprinted by
other papers. I was pretty cross at the time, because of a
series of outrages which I had witnessed, so ■ I caused the '
arrest of the editors of the "Tarrytown News" for criminal
libel. By a curious coincidence I found myself involved
once more with a village horse-doctor — ^not the horse-doctor
of Englewood, New Jersey, but the horse-doctor of Tarry-
town, New York. Readers of "King Coal" will find him
portrayed as the justice of the peace with whom the hero
has an interview.

This judicial horse-doctor issued warrants, and appointed
the day of the trial, and a number of my Helicon Hall friends
agreed to come. But one was ill and another was called away,
and my lawyer arranged with the lawyers of the other side
for a week's postponement. Such agreements between lawyers
are always considered matters of honor with the profession,
but in this case, when we appeared before the judicial horse-
doctor to have the postponement arranged, the lawyers of
the other side repudiated their agreement. So we found
ourselves in a trap — ordered to proceed to trial without a
single witness. Of course we refused to proceed, and the
defendants were discharged.

However, I still had the right of civil action, and of this
right I prepared to avail myself. The attorneys for the
"News" — as they afterwards told me themselves — made a
thorough search of my life, and found nothing to help them.
So they were willing to publish a retraction and an apology.
There was no doubt that I could have made the "News" pay
a very pretty price; but I had not brought the suit for money,
and I agreed to let them off. The retraction was published
on the front page of the "News," but of course it was not
published anywhere else, and there are probably not a dozen
people today who know about it. Mark Twain, I believe, is
author of the saying that a lie can run all the way round
the earth while the truth is putting on its shoes.

I find that wherever people still remember Helicon Hall,
it is some of these old newspaper falsehoods they remember,
and never our earnest effort to show the economies of domestic

The Village Horse-Doctor 73

co-operation. Even the genial O. Henry — ^who, being an Amer-
ican, got his ideas about life from the newspapers. "Say, do I
look like I'd climbed down one of them missing fire-escapes at
Helicon Hall ?" inquires the sarcastic James Turner, cleaner of
hats, in the story, "What you Wafat." .-}

On my desk there lies a copy of the "Moving Picture
World" for April 19, 1919. Somebody has produced a moving
picture film out of a book by the Irreverend Thomas Dixon,
and the magazine tells the managers' of moving picture
theaters how to work up interest and make a "clean-up"
on this film. "Put up red flags about the town and hire
soldiers to tear them down, if necessary," advises the "Moving
Picture World." This picture, "Bolshevism on Trial," has
a sublime patriotic motive. "Columbia's sword is unsheathed
to keep Bolshevism from the Land of the Free," proclaims the
article. And it furthermore informs us that the picture
"promises to be one of the clean-up pictures of the season."
The "Moving Picture World" thinks that it "might profitably
be given Government support, for it is a powerful argument
in controverting the dream-talk of the Socialists." It advises
you to "get local patriotic societies to help." "Work all of
the crowd stunts," it urges ; and in giving elaborate details of
a press campaign, it says:

Work gradually to the contention that Socialism will not be
possible in this or the succeeding generation because people are not
yet prepared for liberty such as Socialism aims at. Later work in
allusion to the feature of the limited experiment made by Upton
Sinclair some years ago at Halycon Hall, where the community
idea fell because all wanted to live without working. All of this
should be worked under a pseudonym.

The above, you must understand, is not an advertisement,
but is reading matter in the country's leading motion picture
journal. It gives you a fair idea of the intellectual attain-
ments and moral standards of the men who supply the mate-
rial by which our children's imaginations are stimulated and
developed.

CHAPTER XIII
IN HIGH SOCIETY

I had written a book showing what was going on at one
end of the social scale. It now occurred to me to write a
book showing what was going on at the other end. Who
spent the money wrung from the wage-slaves of the Stock-
yards, and what did they spend it for? So came "The
Metropolis," whose adventures I have next to tell.

The dramatization of "The Jungle" had brought me into
touch with a play-broker. Arch Selwyn, who has since become
a well-known producer of plays. We were having lunch at
some hotel on Broadway, talking about our play-business,
when I happened to mention the new novel I was writing.
"Say! That's the real thing!" said Arch. "What you want
to do is to get on the inside of that society game. Get a
job in one of those Long Island country homes, and treat
them to a real muck-raking !" We spent some time "joshing"
one another over this idea. I was to get a job as steward on
Howard Gould's yacht! Arch, who had a tendency toward
stoutness, was to assist me by butlering in one of the Vander-
bilt palaces!

Arch was chummy with a man named Rennold Wolf,
who wrote gossip for the "Morning Telegraph," organ of
the "Tenderloin" and the sporting world of New York. To
my consternation, there appeared in the "Telegraph" next
morning a news-item with these headlines :

UPTON SINCLAIR PUTS ON LI VERY

Other Servants at "The Breakers," the Vanderbilt Home in Newport,

Catch Him Taking Notes

"JUNGLE'S" AUTHOR EJECTED
And in the detailed story which followed it was set forth
that I had also been employed as a steward on Howard Gould's
yacht. The concluding sentence read :

He says that he was ready to leave, inasmuch as he already had
absorbed the salient features of Newport culture.

Now there are three or four main press-agencies whereby

74

In High Society 75

news from 'New York-goes out to the rest of the world. I
have shown how in the case of the "condemned meat industry"
these news-channels became a concrete wall. Here suddenly
this concrete wall collapsed and became a channel. In Van-
couver and Buenos Aires, in Johannesburg and Shanghai and
Auckland, people read next morning that the author of "The
Jungle" had been listening at the keyhole on board the private
yacht of an American millionaire. I wrote an indignant letter
to the "Morning Telegraph," denouncing the story and de-
manding that they should publish a retraction. They published
it — in an obscure corner. I took the trouble myself to forward
this letter to all the press agencies which had sent out the
story ; but the news channels had again become concrete walls.

To show what our press has done to my literary work, let
me say that in small countries such as Norway and Denmark
and New Zealand I have more readers than in the whole of the
United States. A single book of mine, "Sylvia's Marriage,"
which in America sold two thousand copies in five years, sold
in Great Britain forty-three thousand copies in two years.
And sometimes I wonder what all these people abroad must
think about me, after fifteen years' operation of the news
channel and concrete wall!

I wonder — ^and then there comes to me the memory of an
incident which happened in Holland. I had rented the home
of a peasant-family in the country, and was much troubled
by fleas, due to a custom of the Hollanders of keeping their
cattle and goats in the rear portions of their homes during
the winter. I tried insect powders and sulphur fumes in
vain, and finally decided upon a desperate remedy. I went
to an apothecary and told him that I wanted five pounds of
cyanide of potassium and a couple of quarts of sulphuric
acid. I remember well his look of dismay. "My dear sir!
What — what — " I told him that I was aware of the danger,
and would seal up the house for several days, and take all
due precautions. They are a polite people, these Hollanders,
the most considerate I have ever met, and the apothecary's
comment was a beautiful combination of terseness and tact.
"Here in Holland," said he, "we should say that was a char-
acteristically American procedure." — ^And so I suppose it
must be with my readers abroad. They would not expect
a European author to go prying at key-holes on board a
private yacht ; but when they read it in a dispatch from New

76 The Bbass Check

York, they say what the Dutch chemist said about cyanogen
gas as a remedy for fleas.

The charge has been made so many times that "The
MetropoHs" is a book of servants' gossip that it might be
well to state that there is no detail in the book which was
derived in any such way. The newspapers which labored so
desperately to discredit the book pointed out that while it
was possible for anyone to go into the Stockyards and see
what was going on, it was not possible for anyone to go
into "society." They saw fit to overlook the fact that I my-
self had been brought up in what is called "society"^ — or
at least on the edge of it, with the right to enter whenever
I chose. My earliest boyhood recollections have to do with
young ladies being prepared for debut parties or for wed-
dings, discussing the material for costumes, and the worldly
possessions of various "eligible" young men, and whether so
and so's grandfather was a grocer. I cannot remember the
time that I was too young to abhor "society," its crass material-
ism, its blindness to everything serious and truly sacred in
life.

Also, contrary to the general impression, it is not in the
least difficult to meet the New York "smart set," if you
happen to be a celebrity. As the late John L. Sullivan re-
marked about Grover Cleveland: "A big man is a big man.
It don't matter if he is a prize-fighter or a president." I
remember once asking Arthur Brisbane how he managed to
hobnob with the Long Island "smart set," when he was at-
tacking their financial interests so frequently. He answered
that they esteemed success, and cared very little how it had
been gained.

You must understand that the members of this "smart
set" are bored most of the time. They go hunting wild
animals all over the world; they fly in airplanes, and break
their necks chasing imitation foxes; they collect porcelains
and postage stamps, Egyptian scarabs and Japanese prints;
they invite prize-fighters and vaudeville artists and European
noblemen — anything in the world to escape boredom. Do you
suppose they would resist the temptation of a. novelist whose
bloody horrors had sent shudders along their spines?

You have read how hunters on the plains are accustomed
to draw antelope to them. They stand on their heads and
kick their heels in the air, and the timid, curious creatures

In High Society 77

peer wonderingly, and come nearer and nearer to gaze at the
startling spectacle. And precisely so it was with me; after
"The Jungle" came out, and even after it was known that
I was writing "The Metropolis," I used to see the sharp
ears and soft brown eyes of timid and curious society ante-
lopes peering at me through the curtained windows of Fifth
Avenue mansions and Long Island country-places. All I
had to do was to go on kicking my heels in the air, and
they would come out oi their hiding-places and draw nearer
and nearer — until at last I might leap to my feet and seize
my rifle and shoot them.

I can say truly that I did not break any game-laws in
"The MetropoHs." The ladies whom I drew from real life —
for example, "Mrs. Vivie Patton" and "Mrs. Billy Alden" —
were ladies who let me understand that they were "game";
they lived to be conspicuous, and they would not be distressed
to have it rumored that they figured in my novel.

Some extracts from "The Metropolis" were published
serially by the "American Magazine." The editors of the
magazine opened negotiations with the "New York Times,"
ofifering to give them the exclusive story of this sensational
serial. Van Anda, managing editor of the "Times," is a
newspaper man, and made preparations for another big scoop,
as in the case of the "condemned meat industry." But this
time, alas, he reckoned without his owner! Mr. Adolph
Ochs happened in at one o'clock in the morning, and discovered
a three or four column story about "The Metropolis" on the
front page of the "Times." It was not so bad for Upton
Sinclair to attack a great industry of Chicago, but when
it came to the sacred divinities of New York, that was another
matter. The story was "killed"; and incidentally, Upton
Sinclair was forbidden ever again to be featured by the
"New York Times." The law laid down that night has been
enforced for twelve years !

The editors of the "American Magazine" had expected
to create a sensation, but they were not prepared for the
storm of abuse which fell upon "The Metropolis," and upon
them for publishing it. I was surprised myself by the way
in which those who posed as men of letters dropped their
literary camouflage, their pretenses of academic aloofness, and
flung themselves into the class-struggle. It is a fact with
which every union workingman is familiar, that his most

78 The Brass Check

bitter despisers are the petty underlings of the business world,
the poor office-clerks, who are often the worst exploited of
proletarians, but who, because they are allowed to wear a
white collar and to \(?ork in the office with the boss, regard
themselves as members of the capitalist class. In exactly the
same way I now discovered that every penny-a-liner and
hack-writer in newspaperdom regarded himself or herself as
a member of "society," and made haste to prove it by pour-
ing ridicule upon "The Metropolis." Mrs. Corra Harris, a
Southern authoress of rigid propriety, wrote an article about
me in "The Independent," in which she hailed me as the
"buzzard novelist," and went on to say that I had listened
at the key-hole on Howard Gould's yacht. "The Independ-
ent" printed my answer, which was that I had been follow-
ing my career as "buzzard novelist" for many years, and
had yet to be accused of a falsehood, but that Mrs. Harris,
at the very opening of her career as buzzard critic, had
repeated a grotesque falsehood which I had denied again
and again.

I am not proud of "The Metropolis" as a work of artj
I was ill and desperately harassed when I wrote it, and I
would not defend it as literature. But as a picture of the
manners and morals of the "smart set" of New York, I am
prepared to defend it as a mild statement of the truth. I
have been charged with exaggeration in the prices I quoted,
the cost of the orgies of the "smart set." These prices I
had verified, not from the columns of the yellow journals,
but by the inspection of bills. I was accused of crudeness
in mentioning prices, because in "society" it is not good form
to mention them. I would answer that this is one of the
shams which "society" seeks to impose upon the wondering
multitude. I have never anywhere heard such crude talk
about the prices of things and the worldly possessions of
people as I have heard among the idle rich in New York.
And even if "society" were as austere and free from vulgarity
as it wishes the penny-a-liners and hack-writers to believe,
that would make no difference to me; for if people are
squandering the blood and tears of the poor in luxury and
wantonness, it does not seem to me such a great virtue that
they avoid referring to the fact.

Also the critics were cross with the hero of the novel ;
they said he was a prig; he ought to have been really tempted

In High Society 79

by the charms of the lovely "Mrs. Winnie Duval." Well,
I don't know. I planned the book as the first of a trilogy,
meaning to show the real temptations to which men are
exposed in the Metropolis of Mammon. It happened to me,
not once, but several times, to meet with an experience such
as I have portrayed in the "Mrs. Winnie" scene, and I never
found it any particular temptation. The real temptation
of the great Metropolis is not the exquisite ladies with un-
satisfied emotions; it is that if you refuse to bow the knee
to the Mammon of its Unrighteousness you become an out-
cast .in the public mind. You are e^ccluded from all in-
fluence and power, you are denied all opportunity to express
yourself, to exercise your talents, to bring your gifts to
fruition.' One of the reasons "The Metropolis" had a com-
paratively small sale was because I had refused to do the
conventional thing — ^to show a noble young hero struggling
in the net of an elegant siren. The temptation I showed was
that of the man's world, not of the woman's ; the temptation
of Wall Street offices, not of Fifth Avenue boudoirs. It
was a kind of temptation of which the critics were ignorant,
and in which the public, alas, was uninterested.

CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT PANIC

My investigations for "The Metropolis" had brought me
several permanent friendships ; for there are true and gracious
people in New York "society," as everywhere else. One of
them was Edmond Kelly, who was not only a thinker and
writer of distinction, but an international lawyer, known in
all the capitals of Europe, and up to the time of his death
the only American who had received the cross of the Legion
of Honor in France. Kelly had been counsel for Anna
Gould in her famous divorce suit, and told me the incredible
story of Count Boni de Castellane. "The Metropolis" was
being published in Paris, and causing a sensation there; as
I read the eulogies of the French critics, "I used to smile to
myself, wondering what they would have said if I had made
a book about the manners and morals of French "society,"
as seen through the eyes of Edmond Kelly!

It happened that I was in New York in the fall of 1907,
and was in Kelly's study late one evening. I had to wait
an hour or two for him, and he came in, deeply moved, and
told me that he had just left the home of an old friend,
Charles T. Barney, President of the Knickerbocker Trust
Company, who was in dire distress. I had been reading in
the papers for a couple of days wild rumors of trouble in
this institution, which had built itself a miniature Greek
temple at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue.
Now I got the inside story of what was going on. It appeared
that the masters of high finance in New York, of whom the
late J. P. Morgan was king, had determined to break these
new institutions, ihe independent trust companies which were
creeping in upon their preserves. Morgan had deliberately
led Barney into entanglements, and had given him definite
promise of support. That night, when called upon by Barney,
he had repudiated his pledge; so the Knickerbocker Trust
Company was doomed, several other trust companies would
go with it, and the whole financial structure of New York
would be shaken to the foundations. Kelly had promised

80

The Gbeat Panic 81

even that late at night to make appeals in Barney's behalf,
so I left him. Next morning I read in the paper that an
hour or two after Kelly had parted from him, the President
of the Knickerbocker Trust Company had shot himself through
the body.

So came the panic of 1907. Pierpont Morgan, having
deliberately brought it on to tighten his hold upon the credit
of the country, discovered t^hat it was getting beyond his
control, and by desperate efforts stopped it — for which action
he became the )iero of Capitalist Journalism in America. It
happened that from two other independent sources I got the
story, every part of which dove-tailed together. So I went
about the streets of New York, knowing that this mighty
master of finance, who was being crowned as a deliverer,
was in fact a greedy old rufSan who had deliberately brought
ruin to thousands of small business-men, and misery and,
want to millions of workers.

I had Kelly's permission to tell the story in the form
of a thinly veiled allegory, the meaning of which no one
could possibly miss. I took the proposition to the "American
Magazine," which signed a contract with me to publish the
story as a serial. I set to work to write it, but meantime the
"American Magazine" must have begun to hear from Wall
Street. It was not very long before John S. Phillips, editor
of the magazine, was sending for me and pleading with me
as a personal favor to let him off from this contract. I did
so, and so ends the chapter of my dealings with another of
our great organs of publicity.

I know no more pitiful story in the history of our
Journalism than that of the "American Magazine." It was
founded because Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard
Baker and Finley Peter Dunne found they were no longer
permitted to tell the truth in "McClure's." They purchased
the "American," assuming a debt of four hundred thousand
dollars. Soon afterwards one of the assistant editors told
me that they were having trouble in meeting their interest
payments; and then came a crisis, plainly revealed in their
columns. The magazine had begun the publication of a sen-
sational series of articles, "Barbarous Mexico," by John
Kenneth Turner. These articles, since published in book
form, and a second time suppressed, gave an intimate, first-
hand account of the ferocities of the Diaz regime, undeir

^^ The Brass Check

which American "dollar diplomats" were coining enormous
fortunes. The "American" began the publication with a
grand hurrah; it published two or three of the articles, and
then suddenly it quit, with a feeble and obviously dishonest
excuse — and poor Turner had to take his articles to that
refuge of suppressed muck-rakers, the "Appeal to Reason."

There must have been some crisis in the office of the
magazine. Somebody had evidently had a "show-down," the
editors had been "taught their place." Ever since then they
have been a theme for tears. Ida Tarbell, who had torn
the wrappings off the infamies of Standard Oil, has for-
gotten the subject, while Standard Oil, after a sham re-
organization, has almost doubled the value of its stock, and
more than doubled its plundering of the public. Ray Stan-
nard Baker, who exposed the financial knaveries of the Beef
Trust, shed his muck-raker skin and metamorphosed himself
into "David Grayson," a back-to-the-land sentimentalist — ^and
this while the Beef Trust has multiplied four times over the
profits it takes out of the necessities of a war-torn world!
Finley Peter Dunne, who contributed the satires of Mr.
Dooley and that withering ridicule of the idle rich under the
name of "Mr. Worldly-Wise Man," has apparently fallen
silent from shame. Lincoln StefFens, the one man who stood
by his convictions, quit the magazine, and now cannot get
his real opinions published anywhere. The "American
Magazine," which started out to reclaim the industrial and
political life of our country, is now publishing articles about
how a little boy raises potatoes in a cigar-box, and how a
man can become a millionaire by cobbling his own shoes.

I write these words in anger; but then I remember my
pledge — the exact facts ! So I go to the library and take down
the first bound volume my hand touches. Here are the
titles of a few "special articles" and "feature stories" from
the "American Magazine" for January, 1918: "How We
Decide When to Raise a Man's Salary." "What to Do
with a Bad Habit." "Are You Going Somewhere — or Only
Wandering Around?" "The Comic Side of Trouble." "Da
You Laugh at the Misfortunes of Others?" "The Business-
Woman and the Powder Puff: The personal story of one
who has made a success and thinks she knows the reason
why." "What I Have Seen Booze Do." "Interesting People :

The Great Panic 83

A Wonderful Young Private Secretary." "A Barber Who
Uses His Head." ''The Star in a 'One-Girl Show'." "From
Prize-Fighter'to Parson."

Now I ask you: could any muck-raker in a rage make
up a list of titles more completely expressive of vulgarity,
commercialism and general "bunk" than the above real ones?

I was at this time planning the sequel to "The Metropolis,"
called "The Money-changers." The story of the 1907 panic
fitted perfectly into my purposes, and so I made it the basis
of this novel. Needless to say, I couldn't get the "American
Magazine" or any other magazine to publish it serially, nor
could I get any respectable publishing-house to take up the
book. I was forced to go to a fifth-rate concern, which
afterwards went into bankruptcy. By the literary reviewers
I was now practically boycotted ; I had written a book of
scandal, I had declassed myself as a man-of-letters. The fact
that every word I had written was the truth, and that the
men I pilloried were the plunderers of a great nation, made no
difference whatever to the austere guardians of our literary
traditions.

Since the year 1908, when "The Money-changers" was
published, it has been the rule of American literary authorities
that in discussions of American novelists my name is not men-
tioned. In 1914 Georg Brandes, the greatest of living critics,
visited America, and to reporters at the steamer he made the
statement that there were three American novelists whom he
found worth reading, Frank Norris, Jack London, and Upton
Sinclair. Every New York newspaper except one quoted
Dr. Brandes as saying that there were two American novelists
he found worth reading, Frank Norris and Jack London. Dr.
Brandes was puzzled by this incident, and asked me the reason ;
when I told him, he consented to write a preface to my next
novel, "King Coal." He spoke so highly of the book that I
refrain from quoting him. But did his praise make any dif-
ference to American critics ? It did not.

All the publicity "The Money-changers" got was from our
"yellow" journals. The reader will understand that I despise
these "yellows"; they are utterly without honor, they are
vulgar and cruel ; and yet, in spite of all their vices, I count
them less dangerous to society than the so-called "respectable"
papers, which pretend to all the virtues, and set the smug and
pious tone for good society — ^papers like the "New York

^ The Brass Check

Tribune" and the "Boston Evening Transcript" and the
"Baltimore Sun," which are read by rich old gentlemen and
'maiden aunts, and can hardly ever be forced to admit to their
columns any new or vital event or opinion. These are "kept"
papers, in the strictest sense of the term, and do not have
to hustle on the street for money. They serve the pocket-
books of the whole propertied class — which is the meaning of
the term "respectability" in the bourgeois world. On the
other hand the "yellow" journals, serving their own pocket-
books exclusively, will often print attacks on vested wealth,
provided the attacks are startling and sensational, and provided
the vested wealth in question is not a heavy advertiser. An
illustration of what I mean is the following, which appeared
in the "New York American" for September 6, 1908:

U. S. NAVY ADMITS ROTTEN ARMOR

Carnegie Co.'s Profit, $700,000

ADMIRAL MASON SAYS OREGON NOW CARRIES 400 TONS

Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and Others Also Have Defective

Plates

FACTS HIDDEN 15 YEARS

Revelations in Upton Sinclair's New Novel Are Fully Verified

Washington, Sept. 5 — Rear-Admiral W. P. Mason, Chief of the
Bureau of Ordnance, in an interview to-day admitted that the battle-
ship Oregon, once the pride of the United States Navy, has carried
since the day she was built 400 tons of defective armor plate.

In addition the naval authorities reluctantly told that the conning
tower of the Oregon, which by expert testimony nearly fifteen years
ago was shown to be full of blowholes, is still on this vessel, which
may any day be called in defending the country against an enemy.

It is also known that the armor manufactured by the Carnegie
Steel Company, Limited, up to the latter part of 1893, which Hilary A.
Herbert, then Secretary of the Navy, recommended- be stripped from
the Indiana, New York, Massachusetts and several other smaller
vessels has never been removd.

The investigation made by the "American"' was prompted by the
assertion in Upton Sinclair's new book, "The Money-changers," that
"there are ships in our navy covered with rotten armor plate that was
sold to the Goverriment for four or five times what it cost."

Referring to the investigation in 1893-94, which resulted in the
celebrated armor plate scandal, the author says: "Nothing much was
ever done about it. The Government could not afford to let the real
facts get out. But, of course, the insiders in the navy knew about it,
and the memory will last as long as the ships last."

This part of the book is a bitter attack on several well-known
men who have been connected for years with the steel industry, and

The Gbeat Panic 85

whose identity it is easy to trace. It charges that at the time of the
armor plate scandal they bought out the Democratic party and secured
the support of a President of the United States.

And here is part of a second dispatch, which appeared in
the "New York World" the following day. It is amusing to
note how these two rivals, the "World" and the "American,"
follow each other up!

Lake Placid, N. Y., Sept. 6 — In an interview given by him today,
after he had been informed by his publishers and a representative
of the "World" of a report from Pittsburgh that William E. Corey,
President of the U. S. Steel Corporation, is to proceed against him
for libel, basing his action on charges contained in his new novel,
Upton Sinclair, who is spending the summer at Lake Placid, defied
the "Steel Crowd," as he designated Mr. Corey and his . associates,
to do their worst.

Mr. Sinclair declared he would welcome legal action on the part
of Mr., Corey, because it would give him an opportunity to place on
record evidence which he declares is in his possession concerning
alleged fraudulent acts of the steel men.

"I have not as many documents as I once had," said Mr. Sinclair ;
"I have not been able to replace some that were burned at Helicon
Hall; but I have more than Mr. Corey would care to see in print,
I fancy."

Mr. Sinclair said that among other documents in his possession
before the destruction of Helicon Hall by fire, were affidavits and
other papers pertaining to alleged fraudulent practices in connection
with the manufacture of steel rails.

"I took the trouble,"^ said he "to go out to Pittsburgh. I spent
a couple of weeks investigating. I had affidavits to prove that these
practices prevailed in the case of steel rails, a year or two before
E. H. Harriman gave out his statement as to the wretched quality
of rails which the Steel Trust was selling his railroads. I can tell
Mr. Harriman, too, that his own purchasing officials wete not ignorant
about it."

All this, of course, had little to do with literature. But
it had something to do with Journalism, had it not? It had
to do with matters of vital importance to the American peo-
ple — ^battle-ships that could not fight, and steel rails that
cracked and caused train-wrecks. How came it that all our
organs of "respectability" kept silence, and left these grave
matters to the despised "yellow" press? '

CHAPTER XV
SHREDDED WHEAT BISCUIT

I had all but ruined my health by overwork, and I now went
to California for a winter's rest. , I rested a couple of months,
and then wrote three one act plays. Having received a couple
of thousand dollars from "The Money-changers," I decided
to try out a plan which had haunted me for many years, that
of establishing a Socialist theatrical enterprise. There were
fifteen hundred Socialist locals throughout the United States,
some of them large organizations. Would not they welcome
a little travelling company, voicing the ideas which were
barred from the commercial stage? I began to organize and
rehearse such a company in San Francisco. And so came
new adventures with the newspapers.

First, the famous Adventure of the Shredded Wheat
Biscuit. It must be explained that I was trying queer ideas
in diet; I have always been of an experimental temperament,
and was willing to try anything in the hope of solving the
health problem, which I have since realized is insoluble —
there being no diet or system of any sort which will permit
a man to overwork with impunity. In California I was living
on raw food, and had written some articles about it in
"Physical Culture." When I had to eat in San Francisco
hotels I could not get raw food, of course, but at least I
wanted whole wheat bread, or failing that. Shredded Wheat
Biscuit. All of which, needless to say, was highly amusing to
hotel proprietors and newspaper reporters.

I was staying at the St. Francis, and I ordered a meal in
the restaurant, from a menu which specified "One Shredded
Wheat Biscuit with cream, 35c ; Two Shredded Wheat Biscuit
with cream, 40c." I ordered One Shredded Wheat Biscuit,
and after I had eaten it I wanted another, so I told the
waiter to make it two. When I received the, bill it showed
fifty cents, and I pointed out to the waiter that this was an
error, it should have been forty cents; I had had only
one portion of cream. The waiter consulted and returned
with the information that inasmuch as the order had been

Sheedded Wheat Biscuit 87

placed in the form of two orders, the bill was twenty-five
cents each. I paid the bill without further comment, but
going out into the lobby I reflected that it was rather pre--
posterous to charge twenty-five cents for a Shredded Wheat
Biscuit, when you could go around the corner to a grocery-
store and buy a dozen in a box for ten or fifteen cents. My
abnormal sense of equity vented itself in a brief note to the
management, stating that I had been charged fifty cents
for two Shredded Wheat Biscuit, when the price on the menu
was forty cents, and I would appreciate having my extra ten
cents returned to me. This note I handed to the clerk, and
there my knowledge of the matter ends. I am not in position
to say that the management of the Hotel St. Francis turned
over my note to the "San Francisco Examiner." I can only
say that I did not mention the matter to anyone, and that all
I did was to write the note, seal it in an envelope, and hand
it to the clerk at the desk.

I understand, of course, that hotels have to have publicity.
People are arriving in the city by thousands every day, and
the problem of what hotels they go to depends upon what
hotels they hear about. If a great soap-magnate or lard-king
is visiting the St. Francis, the management makes haste to
notify the reporters, and there is published a dignified interview
with the soap-magnate or lard-king, giving his opinion of the
market-prospects for soap or lard, and the need of a higher
tariff on such commodities. If a notorious Socialist muck-
raker is visiting the St. Francis, and it is discovered that he
orders Waldorf salads and Shredded Wheat Biscuit arid such-
like foods for monkeys and squirrels — ^why, then the man-
agement perceives an opportunity for publicity of a gay and
cheerful nature. San Francisco, you understand, prides itself
upon being a place of Bohemianism, of bonhomie ; San Fran-
cisco had more saloons in proportion to its population than
any other city in America, and more venereal disease than
Paris — so I was told by a Stanford professor. San Francisco
must have its little jokes.

Next morning there appeared in the "San Francisco
Examiner" a "feature story" to the effect that Upton Sinclair
liad ordered two Shredded Wheat Biscuit in the dining-room
of the Hotel St. Francis, and when rendered a bill for twenty-
five cents had refused to pay it and had raised a disturbance
in the dining-room. Immediately, of course, the great concrete

88 The Bkass Check

wall turned into a news-channel once again, and people in
Vancouver and Buenos Aires, in Johannesburg and Shanghai
and Auckland, who had last heard of Upton Sinclair as work-
ing as a steward on Howard Gould's yacht, now heard of him
as raising a disturbance over Shredded Wheat Biscuit in a
hotel dining-room. "Upton Sinclair Rages," runs the head-
line in the "Los Angeles Examiner." An actress by the name
of Rose Stahl was playing up in Seattle, and her publicity
man must have seen an opportunity to "get in on the game."
In the afternoon paper there appeared a story to the effect
that Rose Stahl had telegraphed me twenty-five cents with
which to pay for my Shredded Wheat Biscuit. Rose Stahl
did not actually send me the twenty-five cents; at any rate
I never received it; she merely gave out the story that she
was sending it, and the concrete wall remained a news-channel
long enough to convey this report.

I stop and wonder: will my readers find it possible to
believe these tales? So many, many things happening to
one man! There is something suspicious about it — ^where
there is so much smoke, surely there must have been at least
one tiny spark of fire! Did I not really raise a disturbance,
just the tiniest little bit of a disturbance — such as would have
caused the people at the next table to desist from their con-
versation and look at me?

All that I can do is to remind the reader of the pledge I
gave at the beginning of this book: I am telling the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not only did I
not raise a disturbance in the dining-room of the Hotel St.
Francis, I never in my life raised a disturbance in a public
dining-room, nor in any other public place so far as I can
recollect. The one act that might be called a "disturbance"
was that which I performed in front of the office of John
D. Rockefeller, Jr., during the Colorado coal-strike; it con-
sisted of walking up and down in absolute silence with a
band of crepe around my arm. On several other occasions
I have made Socialist speeches, and the newspapers have seen
fit to write these up as if they were disturbances ; but I have
never in my life engaged in any sort of altercation or con-
troversy in a public place. I am by instinct shy, and I don't
go into public at all, except I am carried by some conviction.
As a little boy I got into one or two fights, and got a bloody
nose each time, but since the age of eleven or twelve I have

Shredded Wheat Biscuix 89

never struck a human being, and can only remember threaten-
ing to do so on one occasion — ^in a public park, when I saw
an old bootblack beating a very small boy. As for raising
a disturbance with a waiter, I can only say that when a poor
wage-slave in a leisure-class hotel brings me an improper bill,
my impulse is to give him, not a scolding, but an I. W. W.
tract. My anger is reserved for the management of the hotel
which is robbing me, and I give vent to this anger in a
polite letter, which causes the management to rob me still
further. As Shakespeare says:

Who steals my purse steals trash ;
But he that filches from me my good Name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And leaves me poor indeed.

My wife reads this story, and laughs ; she says the world
will find me comical, defending myself so very solemnly
against a comical charge. Well, I am not without a sense of
humor; I look back in retrospect, and have not a little fun
over my "monkey diet" days. But I am serious in this book,
and if you will bear with me to the end, you will see why;
you will see this same predatory Journalism, which made a
"monkey" out of me, engaged in blasting the best hopes of
mankind, and perpetuating slavery and torment for hundreds
of millions of people.

CHAPTER XVI
AN INTERVIEW ON MARRIAGE

Two or three days after the Shredded Wheat episode,
there called on me a pleasant lady who introduced herself
as a friend of an old friend of mine. She wanted to ask
me some questions; and as I was just going in to lunch and
had an engagement immediately afterwards, I asked this lady
to lunch with me. It appea:red that a man and woman in the
city had announced the completion of a five or ten years'
"trial marriage." Would I say what I thought about this
couple, and about "trial marriages" in general? I have
always been willing to say what I thought about any subject^
so I explained that while I was not an advocate of "trial
marriages," it was apparent that this couple were sincere, and
one must respect people who stood by their convictions in
the face of prejudice and ridicule.

I went on to talk to this lady on the subject of modem
marriages. I cannot, of course, state word for word what
I said, but I know my views, which have not changed in any
way, so I can practically duplicate the interview.

In any competitive society, woman is iiecessarily condemned
to a position of inferiority by the burdens of maternity; so,
either she has to suppress her love-nature and her desire for
children, or she must find some man who wiU take care of
her. In a society whose standards are pecuniary, that is to
say, whose members are esteemed in proportion to the amount
of their worldly possessions, the average woman is forced into
a mercenary attitude toward love and marriage. In weighing
the various men who offer themselves, she will generally have
to balance money against love; and the more corrupt the
society becomes — ^that is to say, the greater the economic in-
equality — ^the more mercenary will become the attitude of
women, the more they will weigh money in the balance, and
the less they will weigh love. This is particularly true of the
older women, who know the world and the ways of the world,
and who seek to control the marriages made by their young.

In the course of this abstract discourse I gave some in-

90

An Intekview on Marriage • 91

stances. I told of a couple of mothers I had watched, marrying
off their daughters to what they called "eligible" men — ^that
is to say, men who could support the daughters in luxury.
I said: "Those girls were practically sold." I told of a
young girl being married to a hard and dull old business
man. I told of another young girl being married to a rich
man who had syphilis. I told of another young girl, who
happened to be intimately known to myself and my wife, who
had been in the plight of a school-teacher — ^that is to say,
facing a life-time of drudgery, and the ultimate breakdown of
her health — and who had married a middle-aged corrupt poli-
tician. We had watched the progress of this marriage. We
knew that the husband was unfaithful to his wife, and we
knew that the wife knew it, and we knew that for the sake
of a home and fashionable clothes she was parting with the
finer qualities of her nature. Said I: "We have seen this
woman's character deteriorating stage by stage ; and when we
see things like that, it almost makes us feel ashamed of being
married."

Now, of course, this was a foolish remark ; but it was no
worse than foolish, was it ? It wasn't precisely criminal. But
see what was done with it! .

I parted from the lady who had been my guest at lunch,
and next morning, January 30, 1909, a member of my little
theatrical company called me up in excitement and distress of
mind, to ask had I seen that morning's "Examiner." I
obtained a copy, and on the front page I saw a picture of
myself and a picture of my wife — that stolen picture about
which I have previously told. The story had a scare head-line
reading :

UPTON SINCLAIR SORRY HE WED. SAYS CEREMONY IS

FARCE

Underneath the pictures was the caption:

Upton Sinclair and the wife he declared yesterday he is sorry
that he married.

I will quote a few paragraphs from the article; you will
appreciate the jolly tone of it:

Upton Sinclair saya he's sorry he's married.
He said it ^ight out in a calm, matter-of-fact tone of voice, and
the waiter almost dropped the butter-plate, well trained as the particular

93" The Brass Check

waiter who happened to be leaning over the back of Mr. Sinclair's
chair with this particular butter-plate happened to be.

As Mr. Sinclair talked he threw a handful of California raisins
into his dish of Waldorf salad and watched with evident pleasure
the contrast of the dull purple of the raisins with the pale silver
of the celery and the gold of the aspic mayonnaise.

"Why am I so prejudiced against marriage? Why shouldn't
I be prejudiced against it? You might as well ask rne why I am so
prejudiced against slavery — or against thievery — or if it comes to that
against murder either. Marriage in this day is nothing but legalized —
slavery; that's the most polite word to call it, I fancy. The average
married woman is bought and sold just exactly as much as any horse
or any dog is bought. Marriage — ough! It really isn't a subject
to be discussed at the table !" ,

Needless to say, here was another occasion where the
concrete wall became a news-channel. This story was tele-
graphed to all the Hearst newspapers, and published with the
same photographs in New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta,
and Los Angeles. The substance of it was telegraphed abroad
and laid before the readers of my books, not merely in England
and France and Germany and Norway and Sweden, but in
South Africa and Australia, in Yokohama and Hong Kong
and Bombay. Please do not think that I am just giving you
a geography lesson; I made a memorandum at the time con-
cerning this particular story, which hurt me more than any-
thing that had ever happened to me.

'It chanced that my three one-act plays were to have their
opening performance in San Francisco that evening. So when
I was called on the stage to make a speech, I spread out a
copy of the "Examiner" and told what had happened. Next
morning the "Examiner" took up the cudgels, and published
an article by "Annie Laurie," the interviewing lady, upbraid-
ing me for "playing the cry-baby" and refusing to stand by the
words that I had spoken. Thinking the matter over, I realized
that quite possibly "Annie Laurie" was partly sincere; she
may have thought that the interview she wrote represented
me! She was so vulgar that she saw no difference between
the phrases I had used and the twist she had given to them.

This misquotation by ignorant and vulgar reporters hap-
pens not merely to muck-rakers and Socialist agitators; it
happens to the most respectable persons. For example, here
is Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, of Chicago University ; he
hides himself in the shade of his classic elms, and does his
best to preserve his dignity, but in vain. In an address to a

An Interview on Marriage 93

graduating class he urged the class "to seek a sense of form
— ^in dress, manners, speech and intellectual habits. In antith-
esis it was pointed out that we had lived too long in a kingdom
of slouch." The New York papers got it by telegraph in this
fashion :

The wiggling, swaying movements of American women on the
streets and the stage have made them tha ridicule of all Europe.
They have a glide and a wiggle that makes them both undignified
and ungraceful.

Whereupon the horrified professor writes to the "New
York Nation" :

Of course, I never said any such thing, but papers in all parts
of the country could not know that the report was stupid fiction,
and that the quotation marks were absolutely false. Yet in this form
the above vulgar paragraphs have gone the length and breath of
the country as my utterances.

To understand such incidents you must know the economics
of reporting. The person who misquoted Professor Laughlin
was probably a student, scratching for his next week's board-
bill, and knowing that he would get two or three dollars for
a startling story, and nothing at all for a true story — it would
be judged "dull," and would be "ditched." In my own case, the
person to blame was a "star writer"; she was working on
a fancy salary, earned by her ability to cook up sensations, to
keep her name and her picture on the front page. If this
"star" had gone back to her city editor and said, "Upton
Sinclair is a good fellow; he gave me an interesting talk about
the corruption of modern marriages," the editor would have
scented some preachment and said, "Well, give him two sticks."
But instead she came into the office exclaiming, "Gee, I've
got a hot one ! That fool muck-raker tore up his marriage
certificate before my eyes! He says that married women are
sold like horses and he's sorry he's married to his wife 1" So
the city editor exclaimed, "Holy Smoke ["-^seeing a story
he could telegraph to the main offices in New York and
Chicago, thus attracting to himself the attention of the . heads
of the Hearst machine.

For you must understand that while the city editor of the
"San Francisco Examiner" will be getting three or four
thousand dollars a year, above him are big positions of
responsibility and power — ^Arthur Brisbane, getting ninety or

94 The Brass Check

a hundred thousand, Ihmsen, Carvalho, von Hamra and the
rest, getting fifteen or twenty thousand. If you are to be lifted
into those higher regions, you must show one thing and one
thing only ; it is called "a nose for news," and it means ' a
nose for the millions of' pennies which come pouring into
the Hearst coffers every day. From top to bottom every
human being in the vast Hearst machine, man, woman and
office-boy, has every nerve and sinew stretched to the task
of bringing in that flood of pennies; each is fighting for a
tiny bit of prestige, a tiny addition to his personal share of
the flood. And always, of course, from top to bottom the
thing to be considered is the million-headed public — ^what will
tickle its fancies, what particular words printed in large red
and black letters will cause it to pay out each day the greatest
possible number of pennies.

In conflict with such motives, considerations of honor,
truth and justice count for absolutely nothing. The men and
women who turn out the Hearst newspapers were willing, not
merely to destroy my reputation, they have been willing again
and again to drive perfectly innocent men and women to ruin
and suicide, in order that the copper flood jnay continue to
pour in. They have been willing by deliberate and shameful
lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and
drive them to murderous war. Mr. Hearst's newspaper
machine telegraphed that vile misrepresentation of me all
the way round the world; it telegraphed my repudiation of
it nowhere, and I was helpless in the matter. Millions of
people were caused to think of me as a vulgar and fatuous
person — and some of them were permitted to denounce me
in Mr. Hearst's own papers! The following contribution
by the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, a sensational clergyman
of New York, was featured in the "New York Evening
Journal" with large headlines and a portrait of the reverend
physiognomy :

/ Upton Sinclair seems to be a person so profusely developed on
the animal side that marriage is not able to be conceived of by
him as being other than a mere matter of commerce between two
parties of opposite sexes, and sex simply a principle that starts and
stops at the level of the physical without ever mounting up into the
region of intellect and spirit.

A pig will contemplate even a garden of flowers with a pig's
eye, and instead of arranging those flowers into a bouquet will bore
into them with his snout.

An Inteeyiew on Maekiage 96

Mr. Sinclair's doctrine is that of free love, and matrimony a
physical luxury and an evanescent convenience.

This comes dangerously near to companioning him with the
cattle and makes the marriage relation an elegant reprodnation of
the nuptials of the pasture.

Also I quote a few scattered sentences from a long editorial
in the "Commercial-y^ppeaP of Memphis, Tennesseej an ex-
tremely conservative family newspaper, widely read through-
out the South:

A few years ago a young man by the name of Upton Sinclair
wrote a- novel about Packingtown. We do not recall the name of
the book; but it should have been entitled "The Slaughterhouse."
It was just about the most nauseating novel that has ever been
written by an American. It was a compound of blood and filth
and slaughter, commingled with vice and shame. It was the kind
of a book to be handled with a pair of tongs .... But recently
Mr. Sinclair has aired his views upon matrimony, and what he has
to say is simply shocking to decency. .... It is hard for any decent
person to understand such an attitude. If there is any one thing
that distinguishes man from cats and dogs and other animals it is
matrimony. . , . . If Upton Sinclair's offensive philosophy should be

embraced, it would mean the absolute destruction of family life

The Sinclair philosophy is the philosophy of lust and animalism and
it could only emanate from a diseased and perverted mind.

I have quoted the above because there is a "human interest"
story connected with it, which will perhaps bring home to you
the harm which dishonest journalism does. For something
like thirty years the "Memphis Commercial-Appeal" has been
read by the honorable and high-minded old Southern gentle-
man who is now my father-in-law. Like all good Americans,
this gentleman believes what he reads in his morning paper;
like most busy Americans, he gets the greater part of his
ideas about the world outside from his morning paper. He
read this editorial, and got a certain impression of Upton
Sinclair; and so you may imagine his feelings when, two or
three years later, he learned that his favorite daughter in-
tended to marry the possessor of this "diseased and perverted
mind." He took the beautiful oil painting of his favorite
daughter which hangs in his drawing-room, and turned it
to the wall. And that may bring a smile to you, but it
brought no smile to the parties concerned; for in the South,
you must understand, it is the custom for daughters to be
devotedly attached to their fathers, and also to be devotedly

96 The Bbass Check

obedient to their fathers. If you had seen the tears I saw,
you would know that this old gentleman's daughter was not
an exception to the rule.

And since we have started the subject, perhaps I might
complete the "human interest" story by stating that after all
the tears had been shed and the marriage was a couple of
years in the past, I went down to visit this old Southern gentle-
man. It was a queer introduction ; because the old gentleman
was horribly embarrassed, and I, being impersonal and used to
being called bad names, had no idea of it. After we had chatted
for an hour or two I' retired, and the daughter said: "Well,
Papa, what do you think of him?" .

The old gentleman is quaintly shy and reticent, and had
probably never made an apology in his life before. He did
it all in one sentence; "I see I overspoke myself,"

CHAPTER XVII
"GAMING" ON THE SABBATH

I moved myself and family to the little single-tax colony
at Arden, Delaware, and spent a winter living in tents. The
newspapers of Philadelphia and Wilmington used Arden as
the newspapers of New York had used Helicon Hall — for
purposes of comic relief. For the most part it was not
especially harmful publicity; it had to do with pageants and
mediaeval costumes and tennis tournaments and ^singing fes-
tivals. But always there was ridicule, even though mild;
and this was not a just light in which to place a group of
people who had a serious and useful message to convey. I'
noticed that in their Arden stories the newspapers carefully
refrained from giving any hint of what the single tax meant,
or of why single taxers went to live in a colony. What
got publicity was the fact that one of the Arden boys built
himself a screened sleeping-place up in the branches of a
big tree. "Arden Residents Roost in Tree-Tops"! ran the
headlines. I wasn't roosting in tree-tops myself, but the news-
papers wanted pictures for this full-page story, and my picture
happened to be on hand, so in it went.

I was writing a book, and trying to keep well, and doing
my honest best to keep out of the "limelight"; but the fates
were in a mood of special waggery, it appeared, and came
and dragged me out of my hiding-place.

Close upon the edge of Arden there dwelt an Anarchist
philosopher, a shoemaker hermit, whose greatest pleasure in
life was to rise in public meetings and in the presence of
young girls explain his ideas on the physiology of sex. The
little Economic Club of Arden invited him to shut up, and
when he claimed the privileges of "free speech," the club
excluded him from its meetings, and when he persisted in
coming, had him arrested. It happened that the members
of this Economic Club were also members of the base-ball
team, and they played a game on Sunday morning; so the
Anarchist shoemaker repaired to Wilmington and swore out
warrants, on the ground of their having violated an ancient
7 97

98 The Brass Check

statute, dating back to 1793, forbidding "gaming" on the
Sabbath. It happened that I did not belong to the Economic
Club, and had had nothing to do with the trouble; but I had
played tennis that Sabbath morning, so the Anarchist shoe-
maker included me in his warrants. He told me afterwards
that he knew I would add publicity and "spice" to the ad-
venture.

So behold us, eleven young men summoned to the office
of a Wilmington Justice of the Peace one evening, and
finding the street packed solid for a block, and people even
climbing up telegraph poles and lamp-posts to look in at
the window and watch the proceedings. I am accused of
seeking notoriety, but on this occasion at least I may be
acquitted of the charge. A constable had appeared at my
home and interrupted my literary labors, with a notice to
appear in this public spectacle, under' penalty of dire dis-
pleasure of the law!

The members of the Arden Athletic Association appointed
me their spokesman, and for an hour or two I labored to
persuade the local magistrate that "gaming" meant gambling
and not playing tennis and baseball. But the magistrate in-
sisted that there was another statute against gambling, and
he >had no option but to find us guilty, and to -fine us the
sum of four dollars and costs, which amounted to a total of
one hundred and thirty-two dollars. A large part of this
would go to the magistrate and the constable, and we sus-
pected that this was the basis of his decision; therefore we
declined to pay our fines, and accepted the alternative of a
jail-sentence. The limit under the law was twenty-four hours.
We received eighteen, it being mercifully provided that our
sentences should begin forthwith — at nine o'clock in the eve-
ning. We invited the constable to an ice-cream parlor, and
served part of our sentence there, and another part of it
taking a trolley-ride to the Newcastle County Workhouse.
We sang songs on the way, and the motorman remarked
that we were the happiest bunch of convicts he had ever taken
to the institution.

This is a book on Journalism, and not on prison-reform,
so I will be brief. We spent the night in cells which were
swarming with vermin and had filthy, stinking toilets; we
were served food which was unfit for animals, and we spent
seven or eight hours working on a rock-pile under the charge

"Gaming" on the Sabbath 99

of men, some of whom were brutal and dishonest. This
was the state prison of Delaware, as well as the county
workhouse, and it held three or four hundred men, white
and black, some twenty of them serving life-sentences, work-
ing in a clothing-factory under a sweatshop contractor. The
prison had been recently built, and was advertised as a
model one, yet there was no exercise-court or spot where men
serving life-sentences could get a glimpse of the sunlight or
a breath of fresh air!

. When we came out from the jail we were met by
twenty-two newspaper reporters and three camera-men, and
everything we had to say took the front page, top of column.
Incidentally, I got a curious revelation. For years I had written
poetry, and had never been able to get it published; but now
I found that by the simple device of writing it in jail, I could
get it on the front page of every newspaper in Philadelphia
and New York! The poem was "The Menagerie," which
you may find in "The Cry for Justice," if you are interested.
I had lain on the floor of my cell all night, listening to the
sounds which echoed through the long steel corridors. I quote
two lines:

And then in sudden stillness mark the sound —
Some beast that rasps his vermin-haunted hide.

When my cell-mate, Berkeley Tobey, read those lines, he
remarked : "That's me !" To which I answered : "Tobey, that's
you!"

What we told about conditions in that jail made an uproar
in Delaware. There was still more uproar because the An-
archist shoemaker was threatening to have us arrested every
Sunday, if the Economic Club continued to exclude him 'from
its meetings; and we made investigation and discovered that
members of the Wilmington Country Club, including the
Attorney General of the State and the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, were accustomed to play golf on Sunday.
We served notice that we would employ detectives and have
them all arrested and sent to the Newcastle County Workhouse
every Monday, so that they might discover what it meant to
be confined in a place with no exercise-court and no chance
for a glimpse of sunlight or breath of fresh air. The magis-
trates of Wilmington held a private conference and decided
that they would issue no more warrants upon the charge of

100 The Beass Check

"gaming on the Sabbath." Also the prison commissjoners
of Newcastle County held a meeting and decided that they
had been intending all along to add an exercise-court to the
prison.

Here was a case where I got publicity from the news-
papers ; yet the reader will note, I do not show much gratitude.
This story took the front page, not because the newspapers
cared anything about conditions in the Newcastle County
Workhouse, but solely because the story was funny. Van
Valkenburg, publisher of the "Philadelphia North American,"
told a friend of mine that it was the funniest newspaper
story he remembered in his entire experience. And of course
the facts about the jail conditions were an inseparable part
of the fun. What "made" the story was precisely this — ^that
eleven clean and well-educated and refined young idealists
were taken and shut up all night in steel cells, were put in
prison clothes and set to work on a stone-pile. The fact that
the cells were alive with lice could not be omitted, if you
were to appreciate the joke on a well-known charity-worker
of Philadelphia, now advertising manager of the "New Re-
public," who figured in a poem as "some beast that rasps his
vermin-haunted hide." The fact that the food served in the
jail was vile was necessary to set off the joke that the author
of "The Jungle" had made a bolt for an ice-cream parlor as
soon as he was released. And so on.

I look back upon my life of nearly twenty years of muck-
raking, and am able to put my finger on exactly one concrete
benefit that I have brought to mankind. Twenty or more
men who are serving life-sentences in the Newcastle County
Workhouse owe it to me that they get every now and then
a glimpse of the sunlight and a breath of fresh air! These
men know that they owe it to me, and I have the thought
of their gratitude to warm my heart when I am tempted by
"the blues." One of our eleven Sabbath "gamesters," Donald
Stephens, became in war-time a conscientious objector, and
was sentenced to the Newcastle County Workhouse in real
earnest. He was recently released, and wrote me about his
experiences; I quote:

You will be pleased to learn that the short visit we Ardenites
paid that institution some years back and the publicity you gave to
conditions then led to social improvements — chief of which was the

"Gaming" on the Sabbath loi

building of an outside recreation yard. Some of the old-timers
expressed heartfelt appreciation for the good work you did.

In view of this can you blame me if I am pursued by the
thought of how much we could do to remedy social evils, if
only we had an honest and disinterested press ? Also, can you
blame me if I stored away in my mind for future reference
the fact that when it is necessary to get some important news
into the papers, I can manage it by getting myself sent to jail ?
This is a discovery which is made, sooner or later, by all
social reformers ; and so going to jail becomes a popular diver-
sion and an honorable public service.

CHAPTER XVIII
AN ESSENTIAL MONOGAMIST

The adventure of Sabbath "gaming" served as a curtain
raiser to the great tragedy of my life. I pause on the brink
of this tragedy, hesitating to take the plunge, even in memory ;
hesitating for the reader's sake as much as for my own. I
ask myself, "Will anybody endure to read a detailed state-
ment of the grievances of one man, at a time when so many
millions of men are suffering?" Again, reader, let me beg
you to believe that I am not writing this book to defend my-
self. Amid the terrific events that are going on in the world
at this hour, I would not take ten minutes of my time for
such a purpose.

I am telling this story in defense of a cause. It was
not I, but the cause, that was maimed and tortured through
these years, and any other man in my place would have met
my experience. The matter at issue in this book is not the
character of Upton Sinclair, but the character of the machinery
upon which you rely every day of your life for news of the
world about you. If that machinery can be used deliberately
and systematically to lie about Upton Sinclair, it can be used
to disorganize the people's movement throughout the world,
and to set back the coming of Social Justice.

I grope in my mind for a simile to make clear how I
feel about this book, how I would have you feel. Say to
yourself that Upton Sinclair is a guinea-pig — surely a suffi-
ciently unpretentious creature! It would be entirely pre-
posterous of a guinea-pig to expect that a book should be
written about him, or that a research-laboratory should devote
its attention to him. But the scientist reaches into a pen full
of guinea-pigs, and catches up one by the neck, and makes him
the subject of an experiment — removes his thyroid gland, let
us say, or gives him an injection of a serum. So suddenly
it becomes of the utmost consequence what happens to this
guinea-pig. Trained experts take his temperature every ten
minutes ; they keep a chart of his pulse, they watch his
respiration, they analyze his excretions; and nobody thinks

103

An Essential Monogamist 103

this preposterous — on the contrary, every man of science un-
derstands that the condition of this guinea-pig may be of
greater moment to mankind than the fall of an empire.

So it is that I am giving this story; giving everything —
because that is what science requires. In the case of the
great tragedy of my life, my divorce scandal, I confront the
ordeal with as much shrinking as ever any guinea-pig ex-
hibited. During all the time of this affair, I refused again
and again, in spite of great provocation, to say a public word
in my own defense; nor have I ever told the story, except
to a few intimate friends. The prospect of having to bring
it up again was the cause of my putting off writing this book
for several years.

Obviously, the story must be told. It is generally believed
that there was something in the affair discreditable to me,
and if now I pass it over, my critics will say: "Ah, yes!
He is quite willing to play the game of frankness, so long
as the cards run his way; but when his luck changes, then
suddenly he gets 'cold feet,' and retires from the game!"
Anyone can see that will not do ; I must either tell this story,
or I must leave the book unwritten. Having decided that it
is my duty to write the book, I proceed to the story. I shall
tell just as little as I have to tell, in order to make clear the
part played by the newspapers. More especially, I shall do
my best to spare the feelings of my former wife and her
family. My former wife has remarried, and neither her
maiden name nor her present name is anybody's concern
in this book.

In Ellen Key's "Love and Marriage" occurs a passage
explaining that while monogamy is probably the best marital
arrangement for the majority of people, there are some in-
dividuals so constituted that monogamy is unsatisfactory to
them; they find that the fulfillment of their nature requires
that they should have more than one love at one time. When
my former wife came upon that passage, she brought it to
me in triumph. Here was the thesis upon which she had been
arguing for many years, and here was a woman, recognized
as a great teacher, who believed as she did. I do no un-
kihdness to my former wife in making this statement, because
she was accustomed to quote the passage to every one she
met, and she defended it in published writings.

Now, I have a respect for Ellen Key's personality, and

104 The Brass Check

for many of her adeas. I admit that she may know more
about the nature of woman than I do, and may be correct
in her statements as to the love-needs and the love-rights
of some women. All I could say was that I found the idea
offensive, and I would part company with anyone who acted
upon it. What men and women might agree to do in some
far-off blissful future I did not attempt to say, but for the
present we lived in a world in which venereal disease was
an unforgetable menace, and on this account if no other, one
had the right to demand marital fidelity. I argued this
question through long years, and my former wife found my
arguments tiresome and oppressive. To the newspapers she
described me as "an essential monogamist," a phrase which
gave great glee to the "Tenderloin" loungers and the news-
paper wits who serve them. Just how these wits reconciled
the phrase with the charge that I was a "free-lover," I can
not explain, nor have the wits explained it.

Now ordinarily, when Americans find that they are hope-
lessly disagreed upon such a question, they proceed to establish
a residence in Reno or Texas. Etiquette requires that the
man should pay all the expenses, and also that he should
bear the odium involved. In one of Bernard Shaw's plays
he explains that the English law requires not merely infidelity,
but cruelty in the presence of witnesses, and therefore the
convention has come to be that the man and woman shall
repair to the garden, and there in the presence of the gardener
the husband shall knock his wife into a flower-bed. I re-
member some years ago Mr. Booth Tarkington stepped off
a steamer from Europe and was informed by reporters that
his wife was suing him for divorce, alleging cruelty; he was
asked for a comment, and replied, graciously: "When one's
wife accuses one of cruelty, no gentleman would think of
making a reply."

I was prepared to play my part as a gentleman according
to this standard, and several times I made the necessary
practical arrangements ; but each time the other party changed
her mind. She pleaded that the world attached a certain
stigma to "a divorced woman"; therefore, it was cruel and
unkind for a man to insist upon having a divorce. I might
at least allow her the protection of my name. To this
argument I was weak enough to yield.

I had endured for some eight years this kind of domestic

An Essentiai, Monogamist ig5

precariousness ; a maelstrom in which a man's physical, mental,
and moral integrity are subtly and bewilderingly tossed and
buffeted and maimed. But finally I came upon certain facts
which decided me to put an end to it. It happened in mid-
summer, when my lawyer was in the country, and in my
haste to consult him I made the greatest blunder of my life.
I sent a telegram inquiring whether a letter of admission
from the other party was evidence in a divorce-suit jn New
York State ; and to this telegram I signed my name.

I have since been told that it is a regular custom of the
"yellow" journals, in places where the "smart set" or other
people of prominence gather, to maintain relations with
telegraph-clerks. When telegrams containing news or hints
of news are filed, the clerk furnishes a copy to the news-
paper, and is paid according' to the importance of the "tip."
Three or four hours after I filed that telegram, I was called
to the telephone by the "New York American," which told
me they had information that I was bringing suit for divorce.
I was astounded, for I had not mentioned the matter to a
soul. At first I denied the fact, but they said their infor-
mation was positive, and they would publish the story. So it
was a choice between having a false story or a true story
made known, and I replied, "I will prepare a statement and
send it to you some time this evening." I, prepared the
briefest possible statement, to the effect that my wife had left
me with another man, and had written to that effect, and that
I was preparing to bring suit. The last paragraph read :

I make this statement because I have just learned that word of
my intention has reached one newspaper, and I would rather the
real facts were printed than anybody's conjectures. I have nothing
to add to this statement and I respectfully ask to be spared requests
for interviews.

I sent this statement, and next morning the "American"
published it on the front page, with my picture, and a picture
of my former wife, and a picture of a boy which was not
our boy, but a "fake." I quote a few lines :

SINCLAIR ACCUSES HIS WIFE

Upton Sinclair, the author and social colonizer, in a surprising
statement last night announced his intention to bring suit for
divorce. ....

The action of Mr. Sinclair in giving out such a statement, or
bringing suit for divorce from his wife, wili be a great surprise to
bis friends and co-workers

106 The Beass Check

You will note the phrasing of this, so carefully calculated
to make me odious — a man who rushed to the newspapers
with an attack upon his wife! And then followed several
paragraphs from that old and false San Francisco interview on
marriage, to the effect that women are bought in marriage as
dogs and horses are bought. How singular that a man who
held such ideas should object to marital infidelity!

I am not going into detail concerning the horrors of the
next few weeks. Suffice it to say that the herd had me down
and proceeded to trample on my face. My personality, my
affairs, my opinions and my every-day actions became the
subject of discourse and speculation upon the front pages of
the New York papers. My ifiother's apartment, where I was
living, was besieged by reporters, and when I refused to see
them, it made no difference — ^they went away and wrote what
they thought I might have said. The other party to the case
was interviewed to the extent of pages — I mean literally pages.
Gelett Burgess, who passes for a man of letters, and was one
of the founders of the Author's League of America, wrote a
full-page burlesque of the tragedy, which was published with
illustrations in the "New York American." Mr. Burgess told
a friend of mine some time afterwards that he had done it
because he needed the money, but he was ashamed of having
done it. It is not my wish to spare him any of this shame ;
therefore I reproduce the headlines of his elegant composition :

Why Hungry Mrs. Upton Sinclair Went Home to Mamma.

Gelett Burgess Discusses the Failure of Poetry a la carte as an
Appetite Satisfier, and the Triumph of a Meal Ticket over Free but
Famished Love.

Also I ought not to fail to mention one of the editors of
"Life," who went to see my former wife in company with a
fat little pig of a publisher, his pockets stuffed with bills,
which were offered the lady to write a scandal-story of her
life with me!

The opinions of the newspaper commentators on the scandal
varied from day to day. The generally accepted explanation
was that I had married an innocent young girl and taught her
"free love" doctrines, and then, when she practised these
doctrines, I kicked her out of my home. But some of
the newspapers found the matter worse than that. The
"Chicago Evening Post" gave an elaborate analysis of my

An Essential, Monogamist 107

character and motives. It said it would be possible to forgive
me if what I had done was "the jealous rage of a male brute
infuriated past reason" ; but the awful truth was plain — I had
done this deed as "publicity work" for the second volume of
"Love's Pilgrimage"!

The idea that there lived on earth a human being who
could have enjoyed the experience I was then undergoing
was one which would not have occurred to me; however,
the fact that this newspaper writer could conceive it indicated
that there was at least one such person living. I have since
heard that certain actors and actresses have increased their
fame and incomes by being many times divorced and remarried.
But with authors it does not work out that way. Mitchell
Kennerley, publisher of "Love's Pilgrimage," had been selling
a thousand copies a week of this book, and after the divorce-
scandal he did not sell a hundred copies in six months!

I felt in those terrible days precisely like a hunted animal
which seeks refuge in a hole, and is tormented with sharp
sticks and smoke and boiling water. Under the law it had
been necessary for me to obtain certain evidence. I had taken
steps to obtain it, and this became a source of mystery as
thrilling as a detective-story. For days men followed me
every step I took; my mail was tampered with continually,
and likewise the mail of my friends. I ran away into the
country to hide, I even changed my name for a while, but
that did no good — I was found out. Up to this time I had
never had a grey hair in my head, but I found many after
these months, and have them still.

Among the mass of newspaper items I note one that
seems trifling, yet is curiously significant. There appeared in
the "New Xprk Times" a telegraphic dispatch from Wilming-
ton, Delaware, to the effect that I was being sued by a store-
keeper in New Jersey for thirty-eight dollars worth of fer-
tilizer. Stop and think a minute how many men in America
are sued every day for bills which they refuse to pay, and
how seldom does the "New York Times" hunt out such news
by telegraph! Often I have tried to get radical news into
the "Times," and heard the editors plead space limitations;
yet they found room for a dispatch about my being sued for
thirty-eight dollars!

Five years before this I had owned a little farm, and had
left it in charge of a man who contracted bills in my name.

108 The Brass Check

I had paid all the bills which were properly rendered; but
after four years had passed, and I had sold the farm and
wiped the matter off my books, I received for the first time
a bill for thirty-eight dollars worth of fertilizer. Naturally
I refused to pay this bill ; so I was sued — and the "New York
Times," having me down and desiring to trample further on
my face, obtained the news and published it in connection
with my divorce-scandal.

Nor was that all. The day after this item was published,
there appeared in the "New York World" a column of humor
about me, one part of which I quote. Please take the trouble
to read it carefully, because it illustrates a significant point.

The following statement, with several long-hand corrections, was
received by the "World" yesterday:

"With regard to the report that I am being sued for thirty-eight
dollars worth of fertilizer I might mention that I am being sued
for something I never purchased or received. The dealer has admitted
in writing that he did not send me the bill until four years after
the alleged purchase. I like to get my bills a little sooner than that.

Upton Sinclair.

"Please put the above in the form of an interview."

Now this was funny, was it not? It was a complete ex-
position of an ass ; reading it, you would be perfectly sure you
were dealing with an ass — unless possibly with a crook. The
"Chicago Evening Post" took the latter view. It quoted the
tell-tale sentence with the comment: "Other papers fell for
'Interviews,' but it was evidently one of the 'World's' busy
days, when not even a cub-reporter could be spared for re-
write." On the basis of this, the "Post" went on to expose
me as a cold and calculating notoriety-hunter.

Now what is the truth about the statement in the "New
York World"? Here it is:

Three times in the course of that day the "World" had
sent a reporter to seek me out. Would I not say something
about the report of my intention to file my suit in Delaware
instead of in New York? Would I not say something about
the fact that a man had called up the "New York World" on
the telephone, and announced himself as the co-respondent
in my divorce case, on his way to have a fist-fight with me?
Finally, the third time, would I not at least say something
about this suit for thirty-eight dollars worth of fertilizer ?

I saw no reason why I should not state the facts in this

An Essential Monogamist 109

last matter, so I said to the reporter: "I will not give an
interview, because I have been misquoted so many times, and
am sick of it. But I will write out what I have fo say, and
you can make an interview, of that, provided you do not
change it. I have to look up the dates of the fertilizer bill,
and I'll send what I have to say by a messenger." This was
agreed to, and I wrote out the statement. Having been pre-
viously made to appear as seeking publicity, I wanted to be
. particularly careful in this case, so to remind the reporter
of his promise, I added: "Put the above in the form of an
interview."

I have often written those words in sending copy to
newspapers. For example, they wire asking for an expression
of opinion, and in replying, I remind them that they made
the first move, not I. They perfectly understand the meaning
of the request, "Put the above in the form of an interview,"
and do not commit a breach of confidence except for a definite
purpose, to make some person odious. In this particular case
it was no oversight, no lack of a "cub-reporter"; it was the
deliberate act of malice of the "World" reporter, abetted by
the editors who passed the copy. I know that my statement
reached the right reporter, because the rest of the article
contained things which he had said to me in the course of his ,
calls. I have gone into such minute detail about this episode,
because it shows so perfectly how these corrupt and greedy
newspapers have you at their mercy. They do whatever they
please to you, and you are helpless. If for any reason, good
or bad, you make them angry, they trample you like a vicious
stallion. Or perhaps you seem funny to them, and then they
amuse themselves with you, about as a wanton child who
picks a butterfly to pieces.

CHAPTER XIX
IN THE LION'S DEN

To understand the rest of this episode, you must know
something about the divorce laws of New York, and about
divorce procedure. The code of the State, which was framed
by a combination of Puritan bigotry with Roman Catholic
obscurantism, requires infidelity legally proven. The defend-
ant cannot confess, and neither party to the suit can testify
against the other; moreover, if it appears that both have
desired the divorce or consented to the divorce, there is
"collusion" and the divorce is not granted. These laws are
administered by judges who are almost invariably corrupt,
many of them in addition being under the spell of Catholic
superstition, considering that they have decreased the period
of their sojourn in purgatory when they succeed in twisting
the law or the evidence so as to balk some person's desire
to be free from marital disharmony.

Into this jungle of ravening beasts and poisonous serpents
I now walked, unarmed and unprotected — ^having made the
mistake of employing a lawyer who was a sensitive and
honorable gentleman. The Court appointed a referee to hear
the case, and before this referee I appeared with my counsel
and my witnesses; also there appeared the counsel for the
other party, as required by law, and a solemn farce was
played. The referee had got the case as a morsel of graft from
the infamous Tammany machine ; whether he was malicious or
merely ignorant, I do not know, but he was evidently possessed
with curiosity concerning the notorious scandal, and questioned
me concerning my attitude toward the matters in evidence —
how I had regarded them and what I had done about them.
My attorney objected that under the law I was not permitted
to testify concerning my wife's conduct, but the referee in-
sisted that I should answer his questions, and for fear of
angering him, and possibly exciting his suspicions, I answered.

Under the law it was provided that all this testimony
should be secret, the property of the Court. My attorney
and the attorney for the other party demanded of the referee

110

In the Lion's Den ill

and of the clerk of the Court that the law should be obeyed.
But when the referee's report was handed in, a full account
of it and of the testimony was published in every newspaper
in New York. When inquiry was made by my attorney,
it developed that twenty-six different clerks had had access
to those papers, and it was not possible to determine which
one of the twenty-six had accepted a bribe from the news-
papers. Suffice it to say that the whole obscene story was
spread before the world. I say "obscene" — it was that of
necessity, you understand; the New York State divorce law
requires it to be that, literally. The law requires that the
witnesses must have seen something tending to prove a
physical act of infidelity; and if they shrink from going
into detail, the referee compels them to go into detail— and
then the details are served as delicious tidbits by the "yellow"
journals.

I waited a month or two in suspense and shame, until at
last the august judge handed down his decision. The referee
had erred in questioning me as to the other party's actions
and my attitude thereto; therefore the referee's recommen-
dations were not accepted, and another referee must be ap-
pointed and the solemn farce must be gone through with a
second time. I observed with bewildered interest that the
' erring referee was not compelled to return to me the money
which the law had compelled me to turn over to him as his
share of the "swag." I must pay another referee and a new
set of court costs, and must wait several months longer
for my peace of soul and self-respect to be restored to me.

The second referee was appointed and the farce was
played again. This time the referee would make no mistake,
he would ask me no questions ; he was a business-like gentle-
man, and put the job through in short order. He turned in
his report, with the recommendation that my petition should
be granted; and again the newspapers got the story — only
now, of course, it was a stale story, the public was sick of
the very name of me.

Again I waited in an agony of suspense, until a Roman
Catholic judge handed down his august decision. It ap-
peared that the evidence in the case was defective. The
other party had been identified by means of photographs,
and this was not admissible. Both attorneys in the case
and the referee declared that there were innumerable prec-

112 The Bsass Check

edents for photographs having been admitted, but the Roman
Catholic judge said no. Also he said that there was some
indication of "collusion" ; I had behaved too humanely towards
the other party in the domestic conflict. Apparently it was
my legal duty to behave like Othello, or to do what the relatives
of Heloise did to Abelard.

I understood, of course, what the decision meant ; the
Roman Catholic judge had got his opportunity to step upon
the nose of a notorious Socialist, and he had taken it. My
lawyer urged me to appeal the case, but I remembered a
talk I had had with James B. Ditl "three or four years pre-
viously. Dill was the highest paid corporation-lawyer _ in
America, having been paid a million dollars for organizing
the Steel Trust. Before he died, he was judge of the highest
court of New Jersey, and I had spent long evenings at his
home listening to his anecdotes. I recalled one remark : "There
are twenty-two judges of the Appellate Court in New York
State, and only three of them are honest. To each of the
other nineteen I can say, I know whose man you are; I
know who paid you and just how he paid you. And not
one of them would be able to deny my statements." Re-
flecting on this, I decided that I would not spend any more
of my hard-earned money in appealing — ^more especially as
by so doing I stood to lose what little privacy the law had
preserved to me; the law required that in the event of an
appeal I must pay to have the evidence in the case printed,
and made public property forever! I had received a letter
from my friend Dr. Frederik van Eeden, the Dutch poet and
novelist, assuring me that he lived in a civilized country,
where divorce was granted upon admission of infidelity, with-
out evidence being given. So I set out for Holland; and in
establishing my residence I did not have to resort to any
technicalities. I really intended to spend the rest of my life
in Europe; it seemed to me that I could not bear the sight
of America again.

My earning power had, of course, been entirely destroyed ;
no one would read my books, no one v.ould publish what I
wrote. As Mitchell Kennerley said to me: "If people can
read about you for one cent, they are not going to pay a
dollar and a half to do it." Also, my health seemed per-
manently undermined ; I did not think I was going to live, and
I did not very much care. But I established my residence

In the Lion's Den , , 113

in Holland and obtained my divorce, quietly, and without
scandal. I wish to pay tribute to the kindest and most friendly
people I have ever met — ^the Dutch. When I came to them,
sick with grief, they did not probe into my shame; they
invited me to their drawing-rooms for discussions of literature
and art, and with tact and sweetness they let me warm my
shivering heart at their firesides. Their newspapers treated
me as a man of letters — an entirely new experience to me.
They sent men of culture and understanding to ask my
opinions, and they published these opinions correctly and with
dignity. When I filed my divorce-suit they published nothing.
When the decree was granted, they published three or four
lines about it in the columns given to court proceedings, a
bare statement of the names and dates, as required by law.
And even when I proposed to rid my home of fleas by meahs
of cyanogen gas, they did not spread the fact on the front
pages of their newspapers, making it a "comic relief" story
for the vacuous-minded crowd.

There were many men in Holland, as in England and
Germany and Italy and France, who hated and feared my
Socialist ideas. I made no secret of my ideas; I spoke on
public platforms abroad, as I had spoken at home. When
reporters for the great Tory newspapers of England came
to interview me, I told them of the war that was coming
with Germany, and how bitterly England would repent her
lack of education and modern efficiency, and her failure to
feed and house her workers as human beings. These opinions
were hateful to the British Tories, and they attacked me;
but they did not attack the author of the opinions, by making
him into a public scarecrow and publishing scandals about
his private life. This, as my Dutch chemist would have said,
is "a characteristically American procedure"!

CHAPTER XX
THE STORY OF A LYNCHING

The first American I visited in Europe was George D.
Herron, then hving in Florence, the home of his favorite
poet, Dante. Dante" had been exiled from Florence by the
oligarchy which ruled that city, and in exactly the same way
Herron had been exiled from America by America's oligarchy,
the capitalist press. I had known him for ten years, and had
witnessed his martyrdom at first hand. The story is told in
full in some pages of "Love's Pilgrimage," but I must sketch
it here, where I am dealing with' the subject of marriage and
divorce, and the attitude of our Journalism thereto. As it
happens, the story is timely, for Herron has again been
brought into the public eye, and the capitalist press has
dragged out the old skeleton and rattled its dry bones before
the world.

George D. Herron had been a clergyman, a professor of
Qiristian morals in a Middle Western college. He had been
married a^—a boy and was wretchedly unhappy. I am not
free to discuss that early marriage; suffice it to say that when
he told me the story, the tears came into his eyes. He had
become a Socialist, and had set out to preach the cause of
the poor and oppressed from one end of America to the
other. Among his converts was an elderly rich woman, Mrs.
Rand, whose fortune came from railroad and lumber in-
terests in the Middle West. And now Herron came to love
the daughter of Mrs. Rand. Being a clergyman, he had no
idea of divorcing his wife, and the discovery that hie loved
another woman only added to his misery. His health gave
way under the strain, but he held out — ^until finally his wife
brought suit for divorce, alleging desertion.

Herron had founded a Christian Socialist organization,
and was one of the most popular radical orators in the
country. He was a dangerous man to the "interests," and
here was the chance to destroy him. A perfect storm of
obloquy and abuse overwhelmed him. He was a "free lover,"

114 .

The Stoky of a Lynching 115

they declared, a proof of the claim that all Socialists believed
and practised "free love." The Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis
refused to shake hands with him, turning his back upon him
on a public platform: Newell Dwight Hillis, whose greed
for money led him into a series of disgusting scandals, and
forced him finally to bow his head with shame and confess
his financial sins before his congregation ! The Rev. Thomas
Dixon wrote a novel, "The One Woman," in which he por-
trayed Herron as a sort of human gorilla: Dixon, dealer in
pulpit-slang, who has since turned to the movies as a means
of glorifying race-hatred and militarism, and pouring out his
venom upon all that is humane and generous in life.

I have many friends who were present at the marriage
of George D. Herron and Carrie Rand. They were married
by a Congregational clergyman, William Thurston Brown, and
I have seen the marriage certificate. Yet all over this country,
and in fact all over the world, the newspapers portrayed the
ceremony as a "free love wedding," no real marriage, but
just a say-so to be terminated at pleasure. The most horrible
tales were told, the most horrible pictures were published —
of Herron, and of his first wife, and of his "soul mate" and
his "soul mate's" mother.

I saw that the strain of the thing was killing Herron,
and persuaded him to go abroad to live and do his writing.
Three or four years later old Mrs. Rand died, leaving a
part of her money to found the Rand School ; Herron and
his wife came home to bury her, and again the storm broke
out. He had purchased a farm at Metuchen, New Jersey,
intending tp live there ; a reporter came, representing that the
"Cosmopolitan Magazine" wished to publish a series of articles
about the wives of distinguished American writers. On this
pretext the reporter obtained a photograph of a painting
which Herron had had made of his wife and baby, and a
week later there appeared in the magazine section of the
"New York Sunday American" a horrible scare story about
the "free love colony" which Herron was founding in the
midst of an exclusive residential suburb of New Jersey. There
was a picture of the free love wife and the free love baby,
and of Herron standing upon a ladder, tacking upon a wall
his repudiation of the institution of marriage.. The headlines
ran:

116 The Brass Check

ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS TO PROMOTE THIS DOCTRINE
How the Vast Fortune of the Late Mrs. Rand, Who Gave Prof.
Herron's Deserted Wife $60,000 to Divorce Him, is Being Used in
an Amazing Warfare on Marriage- and Religion Under the Leader-
ship of Herron and Mrs. Rand's Daughter.

This story went all over the country, and recently when
Herron was named by President Wilson as one of the delegates
to confer with the Russian Soviets, the story was rehashed in
our newspapers, and made the subject of indignant protest
by religious bodies. Having visited this Metuchen home and
seen the whole story in the making, I am in a position to
state that the Metuchen "free love colony" was entirely a
product of the obscene minds of the editors of the "Sunday
Yellows." What is the moral character of these "yellow"
editors you may judge from the fact that, soon after this,
one of the editors of the "Sunday World" was arrested by
Anthony Comstock and sent to jail for a year or two, for
having in his possession several thousand obscene photographs
which he used in the corrupting of boys. In such minds
the Metuchen story was born; and seventeen years later its
foul carcass is exhumed by the "Churchman," organ of "the
Church of Good Society" in New York, and made the basis
of a vicious sneer at President Wilson. I quote :

In dealing with Russian liberals, it may be necessary to select
as mediators men who share their political ideas. It is not necessary
to choose men who share their moral practices. We read that the
Presbyterian Union of Newark has adopted resolutions protesting
against the appointment of George D. Herron as a representative of
the United States to confer with the Bolsheviks. The resolution
condemns Herron as a man who has flagrantly violated the laws
of God and man, and they call upon President Wilson to revoke his
appointment. They go into past history and assert that Mr. Herron
endeavored at one time to establish a free love colony at Metuchen,
New Jersey.

Time wasted! We warn the Newark protestants. Mr. Herron's
appointment will not be revoked. What is the marriage vow among
the makers of millenniums?

And lest you think this is merely odium theologicum, I give
an example of the comment of the laity, from "Harvey's
Weekly" :

Why not make Herron the Turkish Mandatory? Herron's matri-
monial views are broad and comprehensive. His poultry-yard standard
of morals might possibly be a little looser than the Turkish, but
he would doubtless conform himself in theory and practice to the
narrower Turkish matrimonial prejudices.

The Story of a Lynching 117

I wonder which is the more disagreeable phenomenon,
sexual license or venal hypocrisy. It is a question I face when
I read denunciations of the morals of radicals in capitalist
newspapers. I have known men and women in a score of
different worlds ; I have talked with them and compared their
sexual ethics, and I know that the newspaper people cannot
afford to throw stones at the rest.

There are causes for this, of course. Their work is ir-
regular and exhau'sting; they squeeze out the juices from their
nerve-centers, they work under high pressure, in furious
competition. Such men are apt to make immoderate use of
tobacco and alcohol, and to take their pleasure where they
find it. But this applies only to the rank and file in the
newspaper world, to reporters and penny-a-liners ; it does not
apply to the big men at the top. These men have ease and
security, and surely we might expect them to conform to the
moral laws which they lay down for the rest of mankind !

I have in mind a certain editor. In this book where I
am sparing no one, I should perhaps give his name; but I
yield to human weakness, having been a guest at his home.
Suffice it to say that this editor is one of America's very
greatest, one to whom the masses of Americans look every
day for enlightenment. This man wrote and published a
most atrocious editorial concerning Herron's sexual morals.
And what was his own sexual life at the time?

When the "Jungle" was published, this editor wrote to
me that he had a friend who wished very much to meet me.
I accepted, and went to dinner in a beautiful apartment in
New York, luxuriously furnished, where I met a charming
and cultured lady whom I will call Mrs. Smith. There were
two lovely children, and there was Mr. Smith, a quiet, rather
insignificant gentleman. I spent an enjoyable evening, and
went away with no suspicion of anything unusual in the
Smith family. But afterwards, when I mentioned the matter
to others who knew this editor, I learned that the editor
was the father of the children, and that Mr. Smith was
maintained in luxury as a blind to cover the situation. I
could hardly believe my ears; but I found that everybody
who knew this editor intimately knew all about it, and that
the editor made no secret of it among his friends. Later on,
I came to know a certain brilliant and beautiful young
suffrage leader, since deceased, who told me how she had

118 The Brass Check

exercised the privilege of the modern emancipated young
woman, and had asked this editor to marry her. His answer
was that he was very sorry, but he was not free, Mrs. Smith
having given him to understand that if ever he left her, she
would kill herself.

Here again we face the New York State law, forced
upon the public by the Roman Catholic Church, making the
grounds of divorce infidelity plus a scandal. Driven by the
terror of scandal, men have been led by thousands and tens
of thousands to make arrangements such as I have here
described. Believing as I do that this divorce-law is an
abomination, a product of vicious priest-craft, I hesitate
before I blame these men ; but no one need hesitate to blame
them when, knowing what the law is, and what they them-
selves have been driven to, they publicly spit upon and trample
the face of a modern prophet like George D. Herron.

And lest you think this case exceptional, I will give you
another. There is a newspaper in New York, a pillar of
capitalist respectability, the very corner-stone of the temple
of bourgeois authority. This paper, of course, denounced
Herron in unmeasured terms; recently it took up the attack
again, in its solemn and ponderous manner rebuking the
President for his lack of understanding of the moral senti-
ments of the American people. This great newspaper is
owned and published by a Hebrew gentleman, intimately con-
nected with the great financial interests of New York. He
is one of the most respectable Hebrew gentlemen imaginable.
And what are his sexual habits?

I know a lady, one of America's popular novelists. She
is a charming lady, but without a trace of that appearance
and manner which in the world is called "fast"; on the con-
trary, she is one of the women you know to be straightforward
and self-respecting, the kind you would choose for your sister.
She came to New York, young and inexperienced, desirous of
earning a living. Naturally, she thought first of this great
publisher, whom she had known socially in her home city.
She went to him and told him that she had made something
of a success at writing, and she wanted to write for the
grteat metropolitan paper. He answered that he would be
delighted, and arrangements were made. They were alone in
the office, and she stood by his desk to shake hands with him in

The Stoey of a Lynching 119

parting, and he pulled her over and took her on his knee;
whereupon she boxed his ears and walked out of the office,
and never did any writing for the great metropolitan paper.
The above anecdote is, of course, hearsay so far as I am
concerned. I was not in the publisher's office, and I did not
see him take the lady-novelist on his knee; but my wife and
I knew this lady-novelist well, and she had no possible motive
for telling us a falsehood. The story came up casually in the
course of conversation, and was told spontaneously, and with
humor; for the lady takes life cheerfully, and had got over
being angry with the publisher — satisfied, I suppose, with
having boxed his ears so thoroughly. I wrote to her, to make
sure I had got matters straight, and in reply she asked me
not to use the story, even without her name. I quote :

You know, of course, that I should be glad to do, at once and
freely, anything I could to be helpful in your affairs. I have thought
it over and it stands about like this in my mind. I am living a life
that has its own aims — a thing apart from public attack and defense.
If I had determined to make public — after all these years — any

offense was guilty of toward me, my own feeling is clear that

I should do it myself, openly and for reasons that seemed to me
compelling So leave me out of this matter, my dear Upton.

And so I confront a problem of conscience, or at any rate
of etiquette. Have I the right to tell this story, even without
giving names? I owe a certain loyalty to this friend; but
then, I think of the great publisher, and the manifold false-
hoods I have known him to feed to the public. I think of
the prestige of such men, their solemn hypocrisy, their pon-
derous respectability. After weighing the matter, I am risk-
ing a friendship and telling the story. I hope that in the course
of time the lady will realize my point of view, and forgive' me.

A different kind of problem confronts me with another
story, which I heard three or four years ago, just after 'it
happened. I had this book in mind at the time, and I said
to myself : "I'll name that man, and take the consequences."
But meantime, alas, the man has died ; and now I ask myself :
"Can I tell this story about a dead man, a man who cannot
face me and compel me to take the consequences?" I think
of the man's life-long prostitution of truth, his infinite be-
trayal of the public interest, and I harden my heart, and
write the story, naming him. But then I weaken, and ask

120 Ti-iE Brass Check

advice. I ask women, and they say : "Name him !" I ask men,
and they say: "You cannot tell such a story about a dead
man !" Which is right ?

Everything that the profit-system could do for one of its
darlings had been done for this man. Millions of books,
millions of magazinelets went out bearing his name; wealth,
power, prominence, applause — all these things he had; his
life was one long triumph — and one long treason to public
welfare. And what was the man's private life? What use
did he make of his fame, and more especially of his wealth?

The story was told to me by a woman-writer — not the one
I have just referred to, but as different from her as one woman
can be from another: a vivid and dashing creature, especially
constructed both in body and mind for the confounding of
the male. This lady was standing on a corner of Fifth Avenue,
waiting for the stage, when a man stepped up beside her,
and said out of the corner of his mouth, "I'll give you five
dollars if you come with me." The lady made no response,
and again the voice said, "I'll give you ten dollars if you
come with me." Again there was no response, and' the voice
said, "I'll give you twenty-five dollars if you come with me."
The stage arrived, and the auction was interrupted. But it
happened that evening that the lady was invited to a dinner-
party, to meet a great literary celebrity, a darling of the
profit-system — and behold, it was the man who had bid for her

on the street! "Mr. and I have met before," said the

lady, icily ; and, as she writes me, "this paralyzed him."

I ask this lady if I may tell the story. She answers : "Go
the limit !" So here, at least, my conscience is at ease !

CHAPTER XXI
JOURNALISM AND BURGLARY

I was obliged to return to America to give testimony
concerning an automobile accident of which I had been a
witness. I had been sitting in the rear seat of a friend's car,
which was proceeding at a very moderate rate of speed along
a down-town street, when a fruit-peddler leaped out from be-
hin-,1 an ice-wagon. He had a bunch of bananas in his hand and
was looking up toward a woman in a window; he was not
two feet ahead of the car when he sprang in front of it, and
was struck before those in the car could move a finger. The
account in the news column of the "New York Times" made
clear that I had been merely a passenger, in another man's
car, yet the "Times" found space on its editorial page for
a letter from some correspondent, sneering at me as a Socialist
who rode down poor men in automobiles!

During my return to America I remarried. The ceremony
took place in Virginia, at the home of relatives of my wife's
family, and I was interested to observe that the "Times,"
which had pursued me so continually, printed a perfectly
respectful account of the wedding, with no editorial sneers. I
was not puzzled by this, for I observed that the "Times" had
taken the trouble to telegraph to Mississippi, to make inquiries
concerning the lady I was marrying^ and the report from their
correspondent stated that the bride's father was "one of the
wealthiest men in this section, and controls large banking
interests." How many, many times I have observed the great
organ of American plutocracy thus awed into decency by
wealth! When Frank Walsh, as chairman of the United
States Commission on Industrial Relations, made a radical
speech in New York, the "Times" telegraphed to Kansas
City and learned that Walsh was a lawyer earning an income
of fifty thousand dollars a year. It was comical to observe
the struggle between its desire to lambast a man who had
made a radical speech, and its cringing before a man who was
earning fifty thousand dollars a year !

In the same v/ay, I have observed the attitude of the New

131

132 The Brass Check

York newspapers toward my friend, J. G. Phelps Stokes, a
Socialist yfho is reputed to be a millionaire, and who belongs
to one of the oldest families in New York "society." So it
makes no difference what he says or does, you never see a
disrespectful word about him in a New York newspaper.
On one occasion, I remember, he and his wife made Socialist
speeches from a fire-escape in the tenement-district of New
York — and even that was treated respectfully! Upton Sin-
clair, who is not reputed to be a millionaire, gave a perfectly
decorous lecture on Socialism, at the request of his fellow
passengers on an ocean-liner — and when he landed in New
York he read in the "Evening World" that he had delivered
a "tirade." I might add that the above remarks are not to
be taken as in any manner derogatory to Stokes, who is in
no possible way to blame for the fact that the newspapers
spare him the treatment they give to other American Socialists,
including Mrs. Stokes.

At this time ten or twenty thousand silk-workers in Pat-
erson. New Jersey, went on strike, affording the usual spectacle
— a horde of ill-paid, half-starved wage slaves being bludg-
eoned into submission by policemen's clubs, backed by prop-
aganda of lying newspapers. The silk-mill owners of Pater-
son of course owned the city government, and were using
the police-force to prevent meetings of the strikers; but it
happened that the near-by village of Haledon had a Socialist
mayor, and there was no way to keep the strikers from walk-
ing there for open air mass-meetings. There was clamor for
the State troops to prevent such gatherings, and the news-
papers were called on to make them into near-riots. My wife
and I would go out to the place and attend a perfectly orderly
gathering, addressed by such men as Ernest Poole and
Hutchins Hapgood, and then we would come back to New
York and buy a copy of the "Evening Telegram" and read
all across the front page scare-headlines about riots, dynamite
and assassination. I have before me a clipping from the "New
York World," of Monday, May 19, 1913. "Paterson's Fiercest
Fight Feared Today" runs the headline.

On this same date my old friend the "New York Times"
achieved a little masterpiece of subtle knavery. I quote :
UPTON SINCLAIR IS HEARD

After Mohl came another newcomer so far as Paterson is con-
cerned — Upton Sinclair.

Journalism and Bukglaey 133

"I just simply could not stand it any longer," said Sinclair, "and
I let my books go and came here to congratulate you. Yours is
the finest exhibition of solidarity ever seen in the Eastern States/'

Sinclair stated that the strikers had the police at their mercy,
but added that perhaps they did not realize it.

This, please understand, was part of a campaign to make
the general public regard the Paterson silk-workers as an-
archists and desperadoes. "The strikers have the police at
their mercy," says Sinclair; and what conclusion does the
reader draw from these words? Obviously, Sinclair is advis-
ing the strikers to grab up clubs and brick-bats and over-
whelm the police. You would have drawn that conclusion,
would you not? Perhaps maybe you are one of the readers
of the "Times," and did draw that conclusion ! As it happens,
when I read that item, I took the trouble to jot down what
I acually did say, and to preserve the record along with the
clipping. I quote:

You fellows go out on the picket-line and the police fall "upon
you with clubs, they ride you down with their horses, they raid
your offices, an^ suppress your papers and throw your leaders into
jail, and you think you are helpless. You don't realize that you
have the police at your mercy. All those policemen are appointed by
the city government; they get their orders from the city government
and every year or two you go to the ballot-box and say whether you
like what they have been doing. In other words, you vote for
Republican or Democratic politicians, instead of electing Socialists
to office, and having a city government that will give you your
lawful rights.

To get the full significance of the above, you must realize
that this was an I. W. W. strike; I went out to a meeting
conducted by Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca and Elizabeth
Gurley Flyrin, and was permitted to preach a doctrine of
political action which these leaders despised. I, who have
all my life urged upon the workers of America the futility
of the strike alone, and the necessity of political action, went
out and said my say in the midst of a campaign of "direct
action"; and see how much understanding I got from the
great metropolitan newspapers for my defense of political^
methods! One year later, after the Colorado coal-strike, th6
little urchins in the village of Croton-on-Hudson where I lived
used to follow me on the street and shout : "I won't work 1"
I used to reflect that our great organs of publicity, the "New

124 The Bbass Check

York Times" and "World" and "Herald" and "Tribune" and
"Sun," stood upon precisely the same level of intelligence as
these little village urchins.

At this time the newspapers were trying to obtain from
me a photograph of the lady who went with me to strike-
meetings, in spite of the fact that her father was "one of
the wealthiest men in this section, and controls large banking
interests." They didn't get the photograph, so they were in
desperate straits. A reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper
— I have the clipping, but unfortunately not the name of
the paper — went to Arden to look me up, and was told by
my friend Donald Stephens that I was not there. The homes
in Arden are scattered about through the woods, and life
is informal; I had locked the doors of my house, but the
windows were not fastened. I am not in a position to prove
that the reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper burglarized
my house and stole a picture of my wife. I cannot state
positively that a course in house-breaking is a part of the
training of newspaper reporters in the City of Brotherly Love.
All I can state is the following set of facts:

1. In my desk in the house there lay a kodak-picture
of my wife and myself and my wife's younger sister.

2. This copy was the only one in existence, having been
taken by my sister-in-law in an out-of-the-way place, and
developed by a photographer who knew nothing about us.

3. Upon my return to Arden, this picture was discovered
to be missing from my desk.

4. This missing picture was. published in a Philadelphia
newspaper.

CHAPTER XXII
A MILLIONAIRE AND AN AUTHOR

The thesis of this book is that our newspapers do not
represent pubHc interests, but private interests; they do not
represent humanity, but property; they value a man, not be-
cause he is great, or good, or wise, or useful, but because he
is wealthy, or of service to vested wealth. And suppose that
you wished to make a test of this thesis, a test of the most
rigid scientific character — what would you do? You would
put up two men, one representing property, the other represent-
ing humanity. You would endeavor rigidly to exclude all
other factors; you would find one man who represented
property to the exclusion of humanity, and you would find
another man who represented humanity to the exclusion of
property. You would put these two men before the public,
having them do the same thing, so far as humanly possible,
and then you would keep a record of the newspaper results.
These results would give you mathematically, in column-inches,
the relative importance to each newspaper of the man of
property and the man of humanity. Such an exact, scientific
test I have now to record.

I introduce the two persons. First, the man of humanity:
At the time the test, was made, in December, 1913, he was
thirty-five years of age; he was known everywhere through-
out' the United States, and was, with the possible exception
of Jack London, the most widely known of living American
writers throughout the world. At the time of the test he did
not own more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Second, the man of property. He was at this time twenty-
two years of age, and had done four things which had been
widely heralded: First, he was born. Second, he decided
to conduct some experiments in farming. Third, he decided
to marry a young lady of his acquaintance. Fourth, he in-
herited sixty-five million dollars. Three of these things are
not at all unusual; many a farmer's boy has done them,
and has not had the distinction of seeing the newspapers
devote columns of space to them. But the other thing is

125

126 The Brass Check

quite unique; since the beginning of American history, no
other person has ever inherited sixty-five million dollars.
So it may be asserted beyond dispute that this young man's
reputation depended upon property, and nothing but property ;
he was the perfect specimen which the sociological scientist
would require for his test — ^the man of property pur sang.

And now for the action of the two men. It appears that
the "New York Times," a great organ of world-capitalism,
in its efforts to camouflage its true functions, had resorted to
the ancient device of charity, used by the Christian Church
ever since it sold out to the Emperor Constantine. Early
in December of each year the "Times" publishes a list which
it calls "One Hundred Neediest Cases," and collects money
for these hundred families in distress. The "Times" never
goes into the question of the social system which produces
these harrowing cases, nor does it allow anyone else to go
into this question; what it does is to present the hundred
victims of the system with enough money to preserve them
until the following December, so that they may again enter
into competition for mention in the list, and have their miseries
exploited by the "Times."

In addition to this, the "Times" publishes every Sunday
an illustrated supplement of pictures to entertain its variety of
readers; and it happened that on the Sunday when it pub-
lished the "Hundred Neediest Cases" it published also a
photograph of a "recreation building" which young Mr.
Vincent Astor was erecting on his country estate at a cost of
one million dollars. This building was for the use of Astor
and his friends ; it had no place for the public. It was devoted
to tennis and swimming and gymnastics; it had no place for
literature, music, art, science, or- religion — it was a typical
product of the private property regime. So the man who
represented humanity sat himself down and wrote a "Christmas
letter" to the millionaire, in substance asking him how he
could enjoy his Christmas, how he could be content to play in
a million-dollar "recreation-building," when he had before
him such positive evidence that millions of his fellow-beings
were starving. This letter was picturesque, interesting and
well-written ; as news it was in every way "live."

So came the first test. This "Christmas letter" to Vincent
Astor was offered to every newspaper in New York City on
the same date, addressed "City Editor," special delivery. It

A MlIXIONAIKE AND AN AuTHOR 127

was sent to both morning and afternoon papers. And how
many pubHshed it? Just one— the New York "Call"— the
Socialist paper. No other paper in New York, morning or
afternoon, printed a line of it, or referred to it in any way.
It was offered to every big news agency in the country. And
how many handled it? Not one. Outside of New York it
was published in the "Appeal to Reason," and in one Chicago
paper which happened to be edited by a personal friend of
the author's. So here you have the first verdict of the capital-
ist journalism of New York City ; a letter written by a man
of humanity represents a total news-value of precisely 0. "j

There the matter might have rested, the test might never
have been completed, but for the fact that the millionaire dis-
agreed with the judgment of his newspaper editors ; he thought
the letter of the author was important, and he answered it.

How this came to happen I have no idea. Maybe the
millionaire's conscience was touched; maybe he had ambition
to be something else than a man of property pur sang. Maybe
he himself wrote the answer; maybe some shrewd family
lawyer wrote it; maybe his secretary or some other employe
wrote it — all I know is that two or three weeks later the
millionaire wrote to the author, and at the same time gave '
his letter to the newspapers.

The author's letter had been, of course, an attack upon
capitalism. The millionaire's was a defense of it. And so
came the second test. Every New York newspaper was of-
fered an opportunity to publish the millionaire's letter to the
author. And how many availed themselves of the opportunity ?
Every one, absolutely every one ! Every one published the
letter, and published it entire! Most of them put it on the
front page, with the millionaire's picture ; some of them added
columns of interviews about it, and editorials discussing it.
The New York newspapers' idea of the news-value of a man of
property was precisely one hundred per cent!

The above would have been sufficient for any sociological
scientist; but, as it happened, the test was carried one stage
farther yet. The author was not entirely overwhelmed by
the evidence of his unimportance as compared with a million-
aire; he was a Socialist, and Socialists are notoriously hard
to squelch. He wrote a second letter to the millionaire, an-
swering the millionaire's arguments ; and again he offered it to
every paper and to every news agency in New York — ^the

128 The Brass Check

same ones that had spread out the millionaire's arguments in
full. And how many printed it? How many printed the
whole of it? Just one — ^the "Call," the Socialist paper. How
many printed parts of it? And how large were these parts?
Let us see.

The author's first letter measured in newspaper columns
sixty-three inches; the millionaire's reply measured nineteen,
and the author's reply to that measured sixty-one. If it be
objected that the author was claiming more than his fair share,
it should be pointed out that the author was attacking an
established institution, something one cannot do in a few
sentences. On the other hand, the most foolish person can
reply, "I don't agree with you" — ^and claim the virtue of
brevity. Also, be it noted that the question here is not what
the author claimed, but what he got. Here is a table showing
what he got, in column inches, from the leading morning
papers of New York:

Author Millionaire Author

Times ...: 19

Herald 19

Press 19

Tribune 19

American 19 2

World 19 2V4

Sun 19 414

Call 63 19 61

Let it be noted that the above takes no account of headlines,
which were all big for the millionaire and small for the
author; it does not include editorials, interviews and photo-
graphs, nor does it reckon the advantage of first -page position.

In order to make the significance of the figures quite clear,
let them be reduced to percentages. Each paper had 124
author-inches offered to it, and 19 millionaire-inches. To
begin with the "Times" : this paper printed all the millionaire
inches — also a few extra which it hunted up for itself; it
printed none at all of the author-inches. Hence we see
that, to put it mathematically, the "Times" considers an author
absolutely nothing in comparison with a millionaire. Exactly
the same is true of the "Herald," the "Press," and the
"Tribune." The "World" printed 100 per cent of possible
millionaire-inches and less than 2 per cent of possible author-
inches, thus giving the millionaire more than fifty times the

A Million AiBE and an Author 129

advantage. Similarly, the "American" favored him sixty to
one. The "Call" placed the two on a par — ^that is to say, the
"Call" printed the news.

I conclude the account of this little episode by quoting a
passage from the published "Memoirs" of a wise old Chinese
gentleman, Li-Hung-Chang, who happened to be a man of
humanity as well as of property:

A poor man is ever at a disadvantage in matters of public con-
cern. When he rises to speak, or writes a letter to his superiors,
they ask: "Who is this fellow that offers advice?" And when it
is known that he is without coin they spit their hands at him, and
use his letters in the cooks' fires. But if it be a man of wealth who ,
would speak, or write, or denounce, even though he have the brain
of a yearling dromedary, or a spine as crooked and unseemly, the
whole city listens to his words and declares them wise.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE "HEART WIFE"

The next story has to do with the phenomenon known as
"Hearst Journalism." It is a most extraordinary story ; in its
sensational elements it discounts the most lurid detective yarn,
it discounts anything which is published in the Hearst news-
papers themselves. At first the reader may find it beyond
belief ; if so, let him bear in mind that the story was published
in full in the "New York Call" for August 9, 1914, and that
no one of the parties named brought a libel suit, nor made
so much as a peep concerning the charges. I may fairly assert
that this story of "Hearst Journalism" is one which Mr.
Hearst and his editors themselves admit to be true.

William Randolph Hearst has been at various times a
candidate for high office in America, and has been able to
exert much influence on the course of the Democratic party —
in New York, in Illinois, and even throughout the nation.
What are the Hearst newspapers ? How are they made ? And
what is the character of the men who make them? These
questions seem to me of sufficient importance to be worth
answering in detail.

In order to make matters clear from the outset, let me
point out to the reader that, for once, I am not dealing with
a grievance of my own. Throughout this whole affair my
purpose was to get some money from a Hearst newspaper,
but I was not trying to get this money for myself ; I was trying
to get it for a destitute and distracted woman. All parties
concerned knew that and knew it beyond dispute. The wrong
was done, not to me, but to a destitute and distracted woman,
and so I can present to the reader a case in which he can not
possibly attribute an ulterior motive to me.

The story began at Christmas, 19l'3. In the New York
papers there appeared one day an account of the death of
a lawyer named Couch, in the little town of Monticello, N. Y.
This man was nearly 60 years old, a cripple and eccentric, who
lived most of the time in his little office in the village, going

130

The "Heaet Wife" isi

once a week to the home upon the hill where lived his wife
and family. The news of his death in the middle of the night
was brought to a physician by a strange, terrified woman,
who was afterwards missing, but next day was discovered by
Mr. Couch's widow and daughter, cowering in an inner portion
of his office, which had been partitioned off to make a separate
room.

Investigation was made, and an extraordinary set of cir-
cumstances disclosed. The man and woman had been lovers
for fifteen years, and for the last three years the woman had
spent her entire time in this walled-off room, never going
outside, never even daring to go near the window in the day-
time. This sacrifice she had made for the sake of the old
man, because she had been necessary to his life, and there was
no other way of keeping secret a situation which would have
ruined him.

The story seemed to make a deep impression upon the
public, at least if one could judge from the newspapers. There
were long accounts from Monticello day by day. The woman
was described as grief-stricken, terrified by her sudden con-
frontation with the world. She was taken to the county jail
and kept there until after the dead man's funeral. No charges
were brought against her, but she remained in jail because
she had nowhere else to go, and because her condition was so
pitiful that the authorities delayed to turn her out. She was
helpless, friendless, with but one idea, a longing for death. She
was besieged by newspaper reporters, vaudeville impresarios
and moving picture makers, to all of whom she denied herself,
refusing to make capital of her grief. She was described as
a person of refinement and education, and everything she said
bore out this view of her character. She was, apparently, a
woman of mature mind, who had deliberately sacrificed every-
thing else in life in order to care for an unhappy old man
whom she loved, and whom she could not marry because of
the rigid New York divorce law.

One morning the papers stated that the relatives of this
"hidden woman'! refused to offer a home to her. My wife
wrote to her, offering to help her, provided this could be done
without any publicity; but time passed without a reply. My
wife was only three or four weeks out of the hospital after an
operation for an injury to the spine. We had made plans
to spend the winter in Bermuda, to give her an opportunity

132 The Beass Check

to recuperate, and our steamer was to sail at midnight on
Monday. On Sunday morning, while I was away from home,
my wife was called on the phone by Miss Branch, who an-
nounced that she had left the. Sullivan County jail, and was
at the ferry in New York, with no idea what to do — except
to leap off into the river. My wife told her to take a cab
and come to our home, and sent word to me what she had
done.

Not to drag out the story too much, I will say briefly that
Miss Branch proved to be a woman of refinement, and also of
remarkable mind. She has read widely and thought for herself,
and I have in my possession a number of her earlier manu-
scripts which show, not merely that she can write, but that
she has worked out for herself a point of view and an attitude
to life. She was one of the most pitiful and tragic figures it
has ever been our fate to encounter, and the twenty-four hours
which we spent in trying to give her comfort and the strength
to face life again will not soon be forgotten by either of us.

We interested some friends. Dr. and Mrs. James P. War-
basse, in the case, and they very generously offered to place
Miss Branch in a sanitarium. Before she left she implored me
to make a correction of certain misstatements about her which
had appeared in the papers. She was deeply grieved because
of the shame she had brought upon her brother and his family,
and she thought their sufferings might be partly relieved if
they and others read the truth about her character and motives.

At this time, it should be understood, Miss Branch was the
newspaper mystery of the hour. She had vanished from Mon-
ticello, and on Monday morning the newspapers had nothing
on the case but their own inventions. I sought the advice
of a friend, J. O'Hara Cosgrave, a well known editor, who
suggested that the story ought to be worth money. "As you
say that Miss Branch is penniless, why not let one of the
papers buy it and pay the money to her? The 'Evening
Journal' has been playing the story up on the front page every
day. Sell it to them."

I said, "You can't sell a newspaper a tip without first
telling them what the story is — ^and can you trust them ?"

He answered, "I personally know Van Hamm, managing
editor of the 'Evening Journal,' and if you will make it a
personal matter with him, you can trust him."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

The "Heart Wife" 133

"Absolutely," he replied.

I talked the matter over with my wife, who was much
opposed to the suggestion, refusing to believe that any Hearst
man could be trusted. They would betray me, and use my
name, and we should be in for disagreeable publicity. More-
over, Miss Branch would never get the money, unless I got
a contract in writing. I answered that there was no time to
get it in writing. It was then about one o'clock in the after-
noon, and the matter would have to be arranged over the
phone at once, if it were to be of any use to an evening paper.
So finally my wife consented to the attempt being made, upon
the definite understanding that she was to stand beside me
at the telephone and hear what I said, and that I was to repeat
every word the party at the other end of the wire said, in such
a way that both he and she would hear the repetition. In
this way she would be a witness to the conversation.

And now, as everything depends upon the question of
what was said, let me state in advance that this conversation
was written down from the memory of both of us a few
hours afterward, and that we are prepared, if necessary, to
make affidavit that every word of it was spoken, not once, but
several times; that the various points covered in it were re-
peated so frequently and explicitly that the party at the other
end of the wire once or twice showed himself annoyed at the
delays. The conversation was as follows :

"Is this Mr. Van Hamm, managing editor of the 'Evening
Journal' ? Mr. Van Hamm, I have called you up because Jack
Cosgrave has told me that you are a man who can be trusted.
I wish to ask you if you will give me your word of honor to
deal fairly with me in a certain matter. I have some in-
formation to offer you which will make a big story. I am
offering to sell it for a price, and I wish it to be distinctly
understood, in advance, beyond any possible question, that
you may have this story if you are willing to pay the price.
If you don't want to pay the price, I have your word of honor
that you will not in any manner whatever use any syllable of
what I tell you."

This was repeated and agreed to, and then I told him what
I had. "I am not at liberty to tell you where Miss Branch
is at present," I said. "I am offering you a story, and a
statement which she desires me to give out for her. The

134 Thk Brass Check

price for it is three hundred dollars for Miss Branch. I
don't want the money myself — I won't even handle it. Is the
price agreeable to you?"

The answer was, "Yes, I will send a man up at once."

I said, "It is distinctly understood that you are to publish
nothing whatever about this matter unless the sum of three
hundred dollars is paid to Miss Branch ?"

"Yes. Where is she, so that I can pay the money to her?"

"I will give you the name of a man who knows where she
is. This man will take the money and will bring you her
receipt. I wish to give you the name of this man in confidence,
for he does not wish his name brought into the case in any
way."

The answer was: "Put the name of the man in a sealed
envelope and give it to the reporter, who will give it to me.
I v/ill personally see that the money is sent to him, and then
will forget his name."

"Very well," I replied, and added, "I have written a
thousand-word article discussing the case. I will give you this
article along with the rest of the information. But you must
not print either this article or a single word about this matter
unless you pay three hundred dollars to Miss Branch. You
understand that distinctly?" ^

He replied, "I understand. A man will be up to see you
in half an hour."

Fifteen minutes after the conversation there came a
telephone-call ; a voice, sharp and determined, at the other end
of the wire, "Is Miss Branch there ?" My wife was answering
the phone and she beckoned to me. We stared at each other,
uncertain what to answer or what to think.

"Miss Branch?" said my wife. "No! Certainly Miss
Branch is not here."

"Then where is she?" came the next question, imperative
and urgent.

" I do not know," said my wife. "Who are you ?"

"I have been sent by Sheriif Kinnie, of Sullivan County
Jail, who has an important message to be delivered to Miss
Branch at once."

Said I (taking the phone) : "Have you credentials from
Sheriff Kinnie?"

"No," was the reply, "I have not."

"Then," I said, "you cannot see Miss Branch."

The "Heabt Wife" 135

"But," said the voice, "I must see her at once. It is really
very important."

"Come here and see me," I said.

"No," was the answer, "I cannot. Please tell me where
Miss Branch is. It is a matter of the utmost urgency to Miss
Branch herself."

This went on for several minutes, and, finally, having
made sure he could get nothing further, the man at the other
end of the wire made an appointment to see me at 5 :30 P. M.

As soon as I hung up the receiver my wife said : "That is
a newspaper reporter. Some other paper knows about her."

But how could this be ? Miss Branch had assured us that
she had not mentioned our names to any one, nor shown
the letter we had written to her; that no one in Monticello
had the remotest idea where she was going, not even the kind
sheriff ; that no one had boarded the train at her station. She
had been most careful, because my wife in her letter had laid
such stress upon her distaste for publicity.

Of course, if other papers had the story of her having
come to us, then Miss Branch would not get the money from
Mr." Van Hamm. I had sold an exclusive story, and it would
be said that I had not delivered the goods. I at once telephoned
to Mr. Van Hamm to tell him of this incident, but I was
told that he was out, and I left word for him to call me up
the minute he returned.

His reporter arrived, Mr. Thorpe by name. I will say for
Mr. Thorpe that I think he tried to be decent all through
this ugly matter. I detected in him before it was over the
manner of a man who has been sent to do a job he does not
like. I explained to him that I had just had a call from a
man I suspected to be a reporter, and therefore I would not
give him the story until I had had another talk with Mr. Van
Hamm and explained the circumstances to him. So Mr.
Thorpe sat for awhile in conversation with me. My wife
came out and talked to him — much to my surprise, for she
has a dread of reporters. Soon, however, I discovered that
it was my wife who was doing the interviewing. She called
me out of the room and said : "That telephone call was from
the 'Journal' office."

"How do you know ?" I asked.

"From everything this young man says, and from his
manner. Tve tried to make him answer me, whether Mr.

136 The Brass Check

Van Hamm could have been responsible for that telephone-
call, and he evaded the question."

"But," I saidi "what object could they have?"

"They may have been trying to probe you. They have
believed that Miss Branch is still with us. This man is trying
to find out right now, for he cranes his neck and peers every
time I open a door."

I did not think this could be, but I was more than ever
determined to have another talk with Mr. Van Hamm. How-
ever, this gentleman continued to be mysteriously absent. I
will sum up this aspect of the matter by saying that he con-
tinued to be "expected every few minutes" at his office and at
his home until 12 o'clock that night. I made not less than
twenty efforts to get him, but he would not even let me
hear his voice.

As I still refused to give up my story, Mr. Thorpe was
suddenly seized with a desire for cigarettes, and went out to
purchase some. I am not in a position to say that he called
up the office, and turned in what information he had been
able to get in the course of our conversation. I will only
say that such information appeared an hour or two later in
the columns of the "Evening Journal."

Mr. Thorpe returned, ,and still Mr. Van Hamm was mys-
teriously missing. At last I got tired of waiting, and I gave
Mr, Thorpe the interview and the article, and also a letter
addressed to Mr. Van Hamm, in which I explicitly repeated
the specifications of my telephone conversation with him. I
read it to Mr. Thorpe and my wife.

It was then time for the mysterious stranger to appear,
but needless to say, he did not keep his appointment. I will
conclude this aspect of the story by quoting the following letter
from Sheriff Frank Kinnie, of Sullivan County, N. Y.

Your favor relative to Miss Branch received this morning and
wish to state that the statement is a falsehood absolutely, as I had no
idea whatever as to Miss Branch's whereabouts, and if you meet Miss
Branch she will tell you that no one here in her confidence knew
where she was going. I trust a kind Providence will protect and
care for her.

To continue: I had that evening to attend a reception
given to the delegates of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society,
at the home of a friend of mine who conducts a boarding
school for young ladies. Little dreaming what an avalanche

The "Heart Wife" 137

I was to bring down upon the head of this unfortunate friend,
I left word at the office that Mr. Van Hamm was to call me at
this school at 8 o'clock that evening.

My wife and I then proceeded to pack our belongings for
the steamer — ^the first opportunity we had had in all this
excitement. The superintendent of the apartment-house came
to us to ask if we could leave an hour earlier ^han we had
intended, as there were two gentlemen who had rented it and
wanted to move in immediately. My wife said : "Surely no
one can move into an apartment in the state of disorder in
. which we are leaving this !"

"It seems strange," was the reply, "but that is what they
want to do. They do not want to wait to have it put in order.
They are waiting, and they want to come in the minute you
leave."

If I had been dealing with Hearst newspapers for a suffi-
ciently long time, I would have understood in advance the
significance of this phenomenon. As it was, I simply pitied
the two unfortunate young men, who would have to sgend
the night in the midst of the chaotic mass of torn manusfcripts
and scraps of letters and envelopes which littered the floor'
Later on I was glad that I had married a lawyer's daughter —
when my wife informed me she had gone over this trash
and burned every scrap of paper relating to Miss Branch and
her affairs !

I went to the reception, and at about 8 o'clock in the
evening the "Journal" called me up — ^"Mr. Williams" on the
wire — to say that Mr. Van Hamm had considered my article
and regretted to say that he could not use it. The information
that I had offered him was not considered worth the sum of
three hundred dollars. I asked what it was worth, and was
told twenty-five dollars. I said, "That won't do. I will offer
it somewhere else." I demanded the right to speak to Mr. Van
Hamm himself on the subject, but was told that he was "out."
I was obliged to content myself with impressing upon "Mr.
Williams" the fact that not a syllable that I had confided to
Mr. Van Hamm was to be used by the "Journal." "Mr.
Williams" solemnly assured me that my demand would be com-
plied with — and this in face of the fact that the last edition
of the "Evening Journal," containing the whole story, was then
in the "Journal" wagons, being distributed over the city! I
called up a friend of mine on the "World" to offer him the

138 The Brass Check

story, and the reader will need a vivid imagination to get an
idea of my emotions when this friend exclaimed, "Why, that
story has already been used by the 'Journal' 1"
"That is impossible !" I exclaimed.
He answered, "I have a copy of it upon my desk."
It was not until I was going on board the steamer that I
got a copy of the "final extra" of the "New York Evening
Journal," the issue of Monday, December 29, 1913. At the
top of the front page, in red letters more than one-half inch
high, appeared the caption :

"JOURNAL FINDS MISS BRANCH HERE"

with two index hands to point out this wonderful news to the
reader. A good portion of the remainder of the front page
was occupied by an article with these headings :

HEART-WIFE IS IN NEW YORK

Found Here by Journal.

"Miss Branch Traced to Well-Known Writer's Home After
Secret Flight.

Adelaide M. Branch, for three years the heart-wife of Melvin H.
Couch, former District Attorney of Sullivan County, is today in Nevr
York City. She is secluded at the home of a well-known sociologist
and writer who has interested himself in her case and has offered her
a home, at least until she can make definite plans for the future.

Miss Branch was traced to her hiding place in this city by the
"Evening Journal." The former "love slave" of Couch told the
sociologist that she wished to be absolutely quiet and undisturbed. So
for the present it is not possible to give her address.

And so continued a long article, which contained practically
everything of what I gave to Mr. Thorpe, sometimes even
using the very phrases which I had used in the presence of
my wife.

I will not trouble the reader with a description of the
state of mind we were in when our steamer set out for
Bermuda. I will simply give a brief summary of what else
occurred in this incredible affair:

First, someone got, or pretended to get, from the hall-boy
at the apartment where I had been staying, an elaborate and
entirely fictitious account of how Miss Branch had arrived, and
how she had swooned and my wife had caught her in her
arms, and how some other people had come and carried her
away in an automobile. This account was published in full.

The "Heaut Wife" 139

Then the records of my telephone-calls were consulted, and
every person whom I had called up in my last two days in
the apartment was hounded. My poor mother was driven
nearly to desperation. In our telephone-call list was found
the name of Dr. Warbasse, who had taken Miss Branch away,
and Dr. Warbasse later received a wireless message from
Bermuda, as follows:

"Give Branch story to papers."

Shortly afterward the doctor was called up by the "Evening
Journal," and was told that the "Journal" had received a wire-
less message from me, instructing them to call on him for in-
formation concerning Miss Branch. I quote from Dr. War-
basse's letter to me:

I believed the only way they could have learned of my connection
with the case was from you, and accordingly gave them a short state-
ment of the facts, but withheld the location of Miss Branch. They
published very distorted versions of what little I gave them. They
were particularly solicitous for her whereabouts. A few days later
I had another wireless from you, , asking me to send you Branch's
address. By this time I had grown suspicious, and sent you my
address instead. I am now wondering whether the wirelpss messages
were from you or were newspaper fakery. If the latter is the case,
it was well done, believe me, and does great credit to the unscrupu-
lousness of the press.

Needless to say, I had sent no such message. What is
more significant, I did not receive the message which Dr.
Warbasse sent to me, giving me his address ! Is the "Evening
Journal" able to intercept cablegrams? I don't know; but
soon after my arrival in Bermuda I received a letter from my
friend who conducts the school for young ladies, scolding me
for the terrible trouble into which I had got her. The "Journal,"
she said, had become convinced that Miss Branch was hidden
in the school, and it was only by desperate efforts that she had
kept this highly sensational rumor from going out to the
world. I thought, of course, that I was to blame for my
thoughtlessness in having given her telephone number to the
"Evening Journal" on the eve of my departure from New
York, and I wrote abjectly apologizing for this. What was
my consternation to receive a letter assuring me that this was
not what had angered her, but the fact that I had been so
foolish as to send her a wireless message, instructing her to
give the story of Miss Branch to the paper, and had wired
the "Journal" to call upon her for the information !

140 The Brass Check

Mr. Arthur Brisbane is the man whom I had always under-
stood- to be the editor in charge of the "Evening Journal." I
wrote him asking him to investigate this affair; and I sent
a registered copy of the letter to Mr. Hearst, who, I assumed,
would be jealous for the journalistic honor of his papers.
I pointed out the fact that on the Monday afternoon in question
every newspaper in New York had had the story that Miss
Branch was going West to see a brother of hers. In all
editions of the "Evening Journal," except the final edition,
the following statement had appeared:

Heart-wife flees to asylum. Miss Branch is in hiding in a sani-
tarium within ten miles of Monticello. As soon as she recovers her
strength she will probably join her brother.

I said that I wished to know what Mr. Van Hamm had
to say, as to how the "Journal" had got the information it
published in its final edition. If it was an independent tip,
who gave that tip? And if the telephone-call alleged to be
from the Sheriff had come from any other paper than the
"Journal," why had not that paper used the story ?

Mr. Brisbane replied that he was now in Chicago, and had
no longer anything to do with the "New York Evening
Journal," but that the matter would undoubtedly be investi-
gated by Mr. Hearst.

A friend of mine, an old newspaper man, wrote me a propos
of this: "Don't imagine for one minute that an)rthing will
be done about it ; don't imagine but that Van Hamm is Hearst.
Hearst knows exactly what Van Hamm does, and if Van
Hamm failed to do it, he would lose his job." This sounded
somewhat C3mical, but it seemed to be borne out by Mr.
Hearst's course. He chose to veil himself in Olympian silence.
I wrote him a second courteous letter, to the effect that unless
I heard from him and received some explanation, I would be
compelled to assume that he intended to make the actions of
his subordinates his own. He has not replied to that letter,
so I presume that I am justified in the assumption. And this
man wishes to be United States Senator from New York !

Several years ago he desired to be Governor, and there re-
sulted such a tempest of public wrath, such a chorus of ex-
posure and denunciation, that he was overwhelmed ; if he had
not had a very tough skin he would have fled from political
life forever. Unquestionably a deal of this denunciation came

The "Heaet Wife" 141

from vested interests which he had frightened by his radical-
ism; but, on the other hand, it betrayed a note of personal
loathing that was unmistakable. I marvelled at it at the time ;
but now I think I understand it.

The story of Miss Branch is forgotten, but other stories
are filling the Hearst papers day by day. Are they all got
with the same disregard for every consideration of decency,
for all the rules which control the dealings of civilized men
with one another? Get clear the meaning of this story of
mine — ^the reason for all this lying, sneaking, forging of cable-
grams, bribing of hall-boys,- violation of honor and good faith.
Was it to get a story? No — ^the ' "Journal" had the story
offered to it on a silver tray ! The reason for all the knavery
was to avoid the payment of three hundred dollars to a
destitute and distracted woman — ^that, and that alone! And
if such be Hearst's attitude to his pocket-book, if such be the
methods of his newspaper-machine where his pocket-book is
concerned, there must be thousands and tens of thousands of
people in New York — politicians, journalists, authors, business-
men — who have run into that machine as I did, and been
knocked bruised and bloody into the ditch. When Mr. Hearst
runs for office, all these men jump into the arena and get
their revenge!

CHAPTER XXIV
THE MOURNING PICKETS

I had a book to write that winter, and my wife's health to
think about. We had got as far from the newspapers as we
knew how — a little cottage in one of the remotest parts of
the Bermuda Islands, with sand-dunes and coral-crags all
about us, and a sweep of the Southern ocean in front. There
we lived for several months, and thought we were safe. I
never went anywhere, except to play tennis — 30 surely I ought
to have been safe ! But I wasn't.

All at once my clipping-bureau began sending me articles
from newspapers all over the United States. I was starting
a ranch for the training of incorrigible boys in Nevada ! First,
I was in Chicago for an assortment of boys; I wanted the
very wildest and most blood-thirsty that could be found ; I had
picked out several young criminals who had been given up by
reformatories. Then, a little later, I was out in Nevada,
starting this "Last Chance Ranch," with a score or two of
boys. And then one of the boys ran away ; he complained that
I fed him on vegetarian food, and he couldn't stand it. As it
happened, I had not been a vegetarian for a long time; also,
as it happened, I was in Bermuda instead of Nevada; but
what did that matter to the newspapers? Before long I
found myself riding on horseback across the desert, chasing
this runaway boy, John Fargo. I had been riding for three
days and had nothing in my saddle-bags but peanuts and
canned beans.

And there I was left. To this day I don't know what
happened to me; whether I caught "John Fargo," or what
become of my "Last Chance Ranch." Is there a phantom
Upton Sinclair, still chasing "John Fargo" over the Nevada
desert, and living on peanuts and canned beans?

It may have been, of course, that there was some one
impersonating me. A friend of mine, a school-teacher, told
me the other day that one of her pupils had assured her quite
solemnly that he knew me well; I was a cripple, and went
about in a wheel-chair. Also, I was told by a waiter in a

142

The Mourning Pickets 143

Los Angeles hotel that a bald-headed man had reserved a
table in my name, and given an elaborate dinner, and that
the hotel staflf had thought they were dining me. I am
wondering what would have happened in the newspapers if
that bald-headed man had drunk too much champagne, and
had thrown a bottle through one of the dining-room mirrors?

I came back to America, and made an investigation of the
Colorado coal-strike, and so began one of the most sensational
episodes of my life. It is a long story, but I shall tell it in
full, because it is not a personal story, but a story of eleven
thousand miners with their wives and children, living in
slavery in lonely mountain fortresses, making a desperate
fight for the rights of human beings, atid crushed back into
their slave-pens by all the agencies of capitalist repression.

I had been to Colorado, and knew intimately the conditions.
Now the strike was. on, and the miners and their families
living in tent-colonies had been raided, beaten, shot up by
gun-men. Finally a couple of machine-guns had been turned
loose on them, their tent-colony at Ludlow had been burned,
and three women and fourteen children had been suffocated
to death. I sat in Carnegie Hall, New York City, amid an
audience of three thousand people, and listened to an account
of these conditions by eye-witnesses; next morning I opened
the newspapers, and found an account in the "New York
Call," a Socialist paper, and two inches in the "New York
World" — ^and not a line in any other New York paper !

I talked over the problem with my wife, and we agreed
that something must be done to break this conspiracy of
silence. I had trustworthy information to the effect that
young Rockefeller was in charge of what was going on in
Colorado, though he was vigorously denying it at this time,
and continued to deny it until the Walsh commission pub-
lished his letters and telegrams to his representatives in
Denver. Evidently, therefore, Mr. Rockefeller was the shin-
ing mark at which we must aim. It happened that one of
the speakers at the Carnegie Hall meeting had been Mrs.
Laura G. Cannon, whose husband was an organizer for the
United Mine Workers, and had been thrown into jail by the
militia and kept there without warrant or charge for a con-
siderable time. So we called on Mrs. Cannon to go with us
to the offices of Mr. Rockefeller.

We were received by a polite secretary, to whom we de-

144 The Brass Check

livered a carefully phrased letter, asking Mr. Rockefeller to
meet Mrs. Cannon, and hear at first hand what she had per-
sonally witnessed of the strike. We were invited to come
back an hour later for our reply, and we came, and were
informed that Mr. Rockefeller would not see us. So we
presented a second letter, prepared in advance, to the effect
that if he persisted in his refusal to see us, we should consider
ourselves obligated to indict him for murder before the bar
of public opinion. To this letter the polite secretary in-
formed us, not quite so politely, there was "no answer."

What was to be done now? I had learned by experience
that it would be necessary to do something sensational. An
indignation meeting in Carnegie Hall, attended by three
thousand people, was not enough. At first I thought that I
would go to young Mr. Rockefeller's office and watch for
him in the hall,~and give him a horse-whipping. But this
would have been hard on me, because' I am constitutionally
opposed to violence, and I did not think Mr. Rockefeller worth
such a sacrifice of my feelings. What I wanted was some-
thing that would be picturesque and dramatic, but would not
involve violence; and finally I hit on the idea of inviting a
group of people to put bands of crepe around their arms, and
to walk up aiid down in front of 26 Broadway in dead silence,
to symbolize our grief for the dead women and children of
Ludlow. I called a group of radicals to discuss the project;
also I called the newspaper reporters.

Picketing, except in labor strikes, was a new thing at that
time, though the suffragists have since made it familiar. The
novelty of the thing, plus the fact that it was being done
by a group of well-known people, furnished that element of
sensation which is necessary if radical news is to be forced
into the papers. A dozen reporters attended our meeting
at the Liberal Club, and next morning the newspapers re-
ported the proceedings in full.

So at ten o'clock, when I repaired to 26 Broadway, I found
a great crowd of curious people who had read of the matter ;
also, a number of reporters and camera-men. The reporters
swarmed about me and besought me for interviews, but ac-
cording to agreement I refused to speak a word, and began
simply to walk up and down on the sidewalk. I was joined
by three ladies who had been present at the meeting of the
night before, one of them Elizabeth Freeman, a well-known

The Mourning Pickets 145

suffragette. A number of others had promised to come^ but
apparently had thought better of it in the cold light of the
morning after. However, the deficit was made up by a lady,
a stranger to us all, who had read about the matter that
morning, and had hastily made herself a white flag with a
bleeding heart, and now stood on the steps of 36 Broadway,
shrieking my name at the top of her voice. It had been agreed
that the "mourning pickets" were all to preserve silence, and
to make no demonstration except the band of crepe agreed
upon. But alas, we had no control over the actions of this
strange lady!

Of course there were a number of policemen on hand,
and very soon they informed me that I must stop walking
up and down. I explained politely that I had made inquiry and
ascertained that I was breaking no law in walking on the
sidewalk in silence; therefore I didn't intend to stop. So I
was placed under arrest, and likewise the four ladies. We
were taken to the station-house, where I found myself con-
fronting the sergeant at the desk, and surrounded by a dozen
reporters with note-books. The sergeant was considerate, arid
let me tell the entire story of the Colorado coal-strike, and
what I thought about it; the pencils of the reporters flew,
and a couple of hours later, when the first edition of the after-
noon newspapers made their appearance on the street, every
one of them had three or four columns of what I had said.
Such a little thing, you see! You just have to get yourself
arrested, and instantly the concrete-walls turn into news-
channels !

There is one detail to be recorded about this particular
action of the news-channels. The United Press, which is a
liberal organization, sent out a perfectly truthful account of
what had happened. The Associated Press,' which is a re:-
actionary organization, sent out a false account, stating 'that
my wife had been arrested. My wife, knowing how this
report would shock her family and friends in the South, sent
a special delivery letter to the Associated Press calling their I
attention to the error, but the Associated Press did not correct;
the error, nor did it reply to this letter. My wife's mother,]
an old-fashioned Southern lady, took the first train out of
Mississippi, to rescue her child from jail and from disgrace;
but by the time the good lady reached New York, she was so
ill with grief and shame that if her child had really been in

10

146 The Bbass Check

jail she could have rendered but little assistance. All she
could do was to inform her that even though she was not in
jail, her father had disinherited her after reading his morning
paper. My wife was informed by lawyers that she was in
position to collect large damages from the Associated Press,
and from every newspaper which had printed the false report.
Some thirty suits were filed, but my wife's health did not
permit her to go on with them.

We were taken to the Tombs prison, where the ladies
sang the Marseillaise, and I wrote a poem entitled "The Mar-
seillaise in the Tombs," and again found it possible to have
my poetry published in the New York newspapers! The
magistrate who tried us was an agreeable little gentleman,
who allowed us to talk without limit — ^the talk all being taken
down by the reporters. The charge against us read "using
threatening, abusive and insulting behavior." The witnesses
were the policemen, who testified that my conduct had been
"that of a perfect gentleman." Nevertheless we were found
guilty, and fined three dollars, and refused to pay the fine, and
went back to the Tombs.

The newspapers tore me to pieces for my "clownish con-
duct," but I managed to keep cheerful, because I saw that
they were publishing the news about the Colorado coal-strike,
which before they had banned from their columns. The "New
York World," for example, published a sneering editorial
entitled, "Pink-tea Martyrdom." "No genuine desire to effect
a reform actuates them, but only morbid craving for notoriety."
But at the same time the "World" sent a special correspondent
to the coal-fields, and during the entire time of our demon-
stration and for a couple of weeks thereafter they published
every day from half a column to a column of news about the
strike.

I spent two days and part of a third in the Tombs. Every
day the r.eporters came to see me, and I gave interviews and
wrote special articles — all the news, about Colorado I could
get hold of. And every day there was a crowd of ten
thousand people in front of Twenty-six Broadway, and young
Rockefeller filed to his home in the country, and "Standard Oil,"
for the first time in its history, issued public statements in
defense of its crimes.

My wife had taken up the demonstration after my arrest,
and I was amused to observe that' the police did not arrest

The Mourning Pickets 147

her, nor did the newspapers ridicule her. Was it because
she was a woman? No, for I have seen the police beat and
club women doing picket-duty — working-women, you under-
stand. I have seen the newspapers lie about working-women
on picket-duty ; in the course of this Colorado campaign I saw
them print the vilest and most cowardly slanders about the
wives of some strikers who went to Washington to make
appeal to President Wilson. No, it was not because my wife
was a woman; it was because she was a "lady." It was
because in the files of the New York newspapers there reposed
a clipping recording the fact that her father was "one of the
wealthiest men in this section and controls large banking
interests."

Please pardon these personalities, for they are essential to
the thesis of this book — ^that Arrierican Journalism is a class
institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor. It happens
that M. C. S. is conspicuously and inescapably what is called
a "lady" ; she not merely looks the part, she acts it and speaks
it in those subtle details that count ihost. All her young lady-
hood she spent as what is known in the South as a "belle";
incidentally, of course, as an ungodly little snob. She has
got over that ; but in case of an emergency like our Broadway
affair, she naturally used every weapon she had. Against the
New York reporters and the New York police department
she used the weapon of snobbery — and it worked.

In the South, you see, a "lady" takes for granted the slave-
psychology in those she regards as her "social inferiors." Not
merely does she expect immediate obedience from all members
of the colored race; she feels the same way about policemen
in uniform — it would never occur to her to think of a police-
man as anything but a servant, prepared to behave as such.
I assured her that she might not find this the case with the
husky sons of St. Patrick who lord it over the New York
crowds. But M. C. S. answered that she would see.

Far be it from me to know to what extent she did these
things deliberately; my advice in such matters is not sought,
and I am allowed to see the results only. What I saw in
this case — or rather learned about later — was that M. C. S.
arrived in front of 26 Broadway an hour late, clad in supple
and exquisite white broadcloth, miHtary cape and all; and
that on sight of this costume the New York City police depart-
ment collapsed.

148 The Beass Check

For two weeks the "lady" from the far South marshalled
the demonstration, walking side by side with eminent poets
from California, and half-starved Russian Jews from the
East side slums, and gigantic lumber-jacks from the Oregon
forests. If those Russian Jews and Oregon lumber-jacks
had tried such a stunt on Broadway by themselves, they would
have had their scalps split open in the first five minutes. But
the lady in the white military cape was there — ^never speak-
ing, but looking firmly ahead ; and so for two weeks the New
York police department devoted itself to keeping everybody
else off the sidewalks in front of 26 Broadway, so that our
"free silence" advocates might have room to walk up and
down undisturbed. They even had mounted policemen to
clear lanes in the street, so that the cars might get through;
and when some one hired thugs to try to pick quarrels with
us and cause a disturbance; the police actually drove the thugs
away. I feel quite certain that this was the first time in New
York City's history that thugs employed by a great corporation
to terrorize strike-pickets had met with opposition from the
police.

And lest you think that M. C. S. is still a snob, and got
a sense of triumph from all this, I ought to add the humiliating
truth — ^that each day after going through with her ordeal, she
would come home at night and cry! She would talk quietly
and firmly to the reporters who came to our apartment; but
after they had gone, she would be in a nervous fever of rage,
because we had had to do such a "stunt," in order to get
the truth into the rotten newspapers.

Ladies in the South are, of course, not accustomed to having
their husbands in jail ; so on the third day M. C. S. collected
all our most respectable-looking "mourners," Leonard Abbott,
George Sterling, Frank Shay and Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Walker,
and put them on duty. Then she betook herself to the Criminal
Courts Building, where she caused much embarrassment to
several gentlemen in high station. The District-Attorney told
her what to do, and helped her to make out the necessary
papers ; then she set out to find the judge. But the Criminal
Courts Building is confusing to strangers; there is a central
balcony, and all four sides of it look exactly alike, and M. C. S.
got lost. She stopped a gentleman coming out of a court-
room, and asked where she could find Justice So-and-so. "He
is in room seventeen," was the answer. "But I can't find

The Mourning Pickets 149

room seventeen," said M. C. S. "Please show me." "What
do you wish with Justice So-and-so ?" inquired the gentleman,
politely. "Why," said M. C. S., "some imbecile of a judge has
sent my husband to jail." "Madam," said the gentleman — still
politely, "I am the judge."

She found Justice So-and-so. His court was in session
and he could not be interrupted. But in the South, you under-
stand, anything from a court to a fire-engine will stop to pick
up a lady's handkerchief. And moreover, the father of M. C.
S. is a judge, so she knows about them. She walked down
the aisle and addressed his honor with her quietest smile, and
— ^the court proceedings halted while the necessary papers were
signed, and a Socialist muck-raker was released from jail.

The reason for this step was our desire to test in the
higher courts the question whether a man whose conduct had
been "that of a perfect gentleman" could properly be found
guilty of "using threatening, abusive and insulting behavior."
In order to appeal the case it was necessary to pay the .fine
under protest, so I paid one dollar, and came out on the
last day — to behold the crowd of ten thousand people, and
the mounted policemen, and the moving-picture operators in
the windows of nearby office-buildings. And so, day after
day, we were enabled to give information about the Colorado
coal-strike to a group of reporters for the New York papers !

Several of these reporters were men of conscience. One,
Isaac Russell of the "Times," became our friend, and day after
dky he would tell us of his struggles in the "Times" office, and
how nearly every word favorable to myself or to the strikers
was blue-penciled from ^ his story. So during this Broadway
demonstration, and the affair in Tarrytown which followed
it, we lived, as it were, on the inside of the "Times" office,
and watched the process of strangling the news. We have seen
the tears come into Russell's eyes as he told about what
was done. And on top of it all, Mr. Adolph Ochs gave a
banquet to the "Times" staff, to celebrate some anniversary
of the paper, and got up and made a speech to them — a speech
to Isaac Russell ! — ^telling what a wonderful institution he had
made out of the "Times," and how it stood consecrated to the
public welfare and the service of the truth!

P. S. — Isaac Russell reads the above, and corrects one
serious error. He writes in emphatic capitals:

"WE REPORTERS PAID FOR THAT DINNER !"

CHAPTER XXV
THE CASE OF THE "A, P."

It must be understood that at this time the Colorado coal-
strike had been going on for six or seven months. Most of
the tentTColonies had been broken up, and the miners were
being slowly starved into submission. To one who comes
into close touch with such a situation and realizes its human
meanings, it becomes an intolerable nightmare, a slow murder
committed in a buried, dungeon. My mail was full of letters
from the miners and their leaders, and I went out to Colorado
to see what else could be done to reach the consciences of
the American people. I arrived in Denver at a time when the
first public fury over the Ludlow massacre had spent itself,
and silence had once more been clamped down upon the news-
papers. I spoke at a mass meeting in the State capitol, at-
tended by one or two thousand people, and when I called on
the audience to pledge itself never to permit the prostituted
State militia to go back into the coal districts, I think every
person in the legislative chamber raised his hand and took the
pledge. Yet not a line about my speech was published in any
Denver newspaper next morning, and needless to say, not a
line was sent out by the Associated Press.

The Associated Press was playing here precisely the same
part it had played with the "condemned meat industry;"
that is, it was a concrete wall. I have now to tell about a
thorough test of this leading agency of capitalist repression.
I consider the incident the most important which this book
contains, and therefore I shall tell it in detail. By far the
greater part of the news which the American people absorb
about the outside world comes through the Associated Press,
and the news they get is, of course, the raw material of their
thought. If the news is colored or doctored, then public
opinion is betrayed and the national life is corrupted at its
source. There is no more important question to be considered
by the American people than the question. Is the Associated
Press fair? Does it transmit the news?

Some time previous to the Colorado coal-strike I had

150

The Case of the "A. P." 151

attended a dinner of the Socialist Press Club, at which the
question of dishonest newspapers was debated, and one of
the speakers was Mr. Fabian Franklin, then editor of the.
"Evening Post," an amiable old gentleman who quite naively
referred to the Associated Press as he would have referred
to the Holy Trinity. He told of some radical friend of his
who had pointed out that the Associated Press had circulated
the news of a defeat of the Initiative and Referendum in
Oregon, and subsequently, when the Initiative and Referendum
had been victorious, had failed to report the victory. "Just
think of it!" said this amiable old gentleman. "My radical
friend actually believed that the Associated Press would have
some motive in suppressing news about the success of the
Initiative and Referendum in Oregon!"

I was called upon to answer this argument. I quote from
an account of the discussion in the "New York Call" :

Sinclair was saying that when the fusion of capitalism beat Seidel
(Socialist) in Milwaukee, the wires were full of it, but when Duncan
(Socialist) beat a fusion in Butte, the press was as silent as the
tomb. Franklin said that it was merely that Butte had no news
value, while Milwaukee, "Schlitz beer — everybody wants to know about
Milwaukee/'

. Incidentally I might mention in passing that this amiable
old gentleman, Mr. Fabian Franklin, who thinks that the
Associated Press would be incapable of suppressing news
about a triumph of the Initiative and Referendum, and that it
would naturally send out political news about Milwaukee be-
cause Schlitz beer is made in Milwaukee, has just recently been
selected by a group of reactionaries to conduct a weekly organ
of safety and sanity, "The Review." The reader will be
able from the above anecdote to form an idea of the intellectual
status of Mr. Franklin, and the likelihood of his having anj^-
thing worth while to say to the American people in this
greatest crisis of history!

Shortly afterwards came the case of the "Masses," which
published a cartoon representing the president of the Asso-
ciated Press as pouring a bottle labeled "Poison" into a
reservoir entitled "Public Opinion." The Associated Press
caused the arrest of Max Eastman and Art Young on a charge
of criminal libel. They knew that by starting such a pro-
ceeding they would gain an opportunity of propaganda, and
of this they hastened to make use. They issued an elaborate

152 The Beass Check

statement attacking the "Masses" and defending their own
attitude toward the news, which statement was published in
practically every paper in New York. I remember particularly
that our organ of civic virtue, the "New York Evening
Post," published it in full. It included this sort of "dope":

If these young men had investigated before they spoke, they
would never have said what they did; for if there is a clean thing
in the United States it is the Associated Press. The personnel of
the service is made up as a whole of newspaper men of the finest
type; throughout the profession emplo3Tnent in its service is regarded
as an evidence of character and reliability. No general policy of sup-
pression or distortion could be carried on without the knowledge and
indeed the active connivance of these men, stationed at strategic
points all over the world. Aside from that, the Associated Press has
the active competition of i several other aggressive press associations ,
and thousands of special correspondents, and any laxity or deliberate
failure on its part would be exposed instantly to its members, who
would be quick to resent and punish any such procedure. These
members, some nine hundred in number, represent every shade of
political and economic opinion, and it is absurd to suppose that a
general policy of distortion or suppression could be carried on without
immediate exposure.

The editors of the "Masses," of course, proceeded to
collect evidence, and the Associated Press must have realized
very quickly that they were in for serious trouble. They
caused a subservient district attorney to bring another in-
dictment, charging libel against the individual who had been
portrayed in the cartoon : the purpose of the change being .
that they hoped to exclude from the trial all evidence against
the Associated Press as an organization, and to force the
"Masses" to prove that this one individual had had personal
knowledge of each instance of news suppression and per-
version.

Gilbert E. Roe, who was preparing the case for the
"Masses," asked me to tell him of my experiences with the
Associated Press, and in talking the matter over he explained
what would be required to constitute legal evidence of the sup-
pression of news. I had no such legal evidence in the case
of the "condemned meat industry," because I had not kept
copies of my letters to the Associated Press, and I had not
kept the clippings of what they actually did send out on
the story. I promised Mr. Roe that the next time I went to
the bat with the "A. P.," I would take pains to get proper
evidence; and now in Denver I came suddenly upon my op-

The Case of the "A. P." 153

portunity. I got real legal evidence, and the Associated Press
knows that I got it, and I have been told that because of
this they will never again dare to bring radicals into court,
or to defend the thesis that they handle the news impartially.
In my challenge I deliberately repeated the words for use of
which the "Masses" editors were indicted, as follows :

I now, over my own signature and as a deliberate challenge, charge
that the Associated Press has poisoned the news of the Colorado
situation at its source. Will the owners and managers of the Asso-
ciated Press take up this challenge and make an attempt to send me
to prison? I am waiting, gentlemen, for your answer.

This was published May 30, 1914, and I am still waiting.
I made every effort, both public and private, to get this
answer. I besieged the Associated Press and also the Asso-
ciated Press newspapers, but no answer could be had, so I
think I may fairly say that the Associated Press admitted its
guilt in this case. The story, first published in the "Appeal
to Reason," was written within a few hours of the events
narrated, and gave all the documents. With the addition of
a few explanations, made necessary by the lapse of time, the
story is given unchanged in the next two chapters. It is a
long story, but it will repay study, for there are few narratives
of recent events which take you quite so far into the "inside,"
or reveal quite so clearly how Politics, Journalism, and Big
Business work hand in hand for the hoodwinking of the public
and the plundering of labor. I urge the reader to follow the
narrative carefully, for every detail is necessary to the proper
comprehension of the plot.

CHAPTER XXVI
A GOVERNOR AND HIS LIE

The crux of the struggle in Denver during these critical
months was the State militia. This militia had been called
out and sent to the strike-field because of violence deliberately
and systematically committed by the armed thugs of the Bald-
win-Felts Detective Agency. There were one or two thousand
of these thugs in the field, and they had beaten up the strikers
and their wives, and turned machine-guns upon their tent-
colonies. The militia had come, supposedly to restore law and
order, but the militia authorities had proceeded to recruit new
companies from among these detectives and thugs. This was
systematically denied by the newspapers, not merely in
Colorado, but all over the country; later on, however, the
State legislature forced the production of the roster of the
militia, and it appeared that of one single company, newly
recruited, one hundred and nineteen members out of one
hundred and twenty-two had been employes of the strike-
breaking agencies, and had continued on the pay-rolls of th(
coal-companies while serving in the State militia! They had
been armed by the State, qlothed in the uniform of the State,
covered by the flag of the State — and turned loose to commit
the very crimes they were supposed to be preventing! The
culmination of this perversion of government had been the
Ludlow Massacre, which drove the miners to frenzy. There
had been a miniature revolution in Colorado ; armed working-
men had taken possession of the coal-country, and the helpless
State government had appealed to the Federal authorities to
send in Federal troops.

The Federal troops had come, and the miners had loyally
obeyed them. From the hour that the first regulars appeared,
no shot was fired in the whole region. The Federal authorities
preserved law and order, and meantime the State legislature
was called to deal with the situation. This State legislature
was composed of hand-picked machine politicians, and all its
orders were given from the offices of the Colorado Fuel &

154

A Governor and His Lie 155

Iron Company, Senator Van Tilborg, machine-leader, per-
sonally declared to me his opinion that all the State needed
was "three hundred men who could shoot straight and quick."
The State authorities meant to find these three hundred men;
they passed a bill appropriating a million dollars for military
purposes, and another bill providing for the disarming of
all people in the State who were not in the service of the cor-
porations.

The strike at this time had continued for seven months, and
the strikers were in their tent-colonies, sullenly awaiting de-
velopments. The prtogram of the corporations was to strengthen
the State militia, then have it take charge and maintain itself
by machine-guns. The attitude of the general public to this
proposition may be gathered from the mass-meeting in the
State capitol, where one or two thousand people raised their
hands and pledged themselves that they would never permit
the prostituted militia to go back to the mines.

So stood the situation on Saturday, May 16, 1914, the
day the State legislature was scheduled to adjourn. President
Wilson, who had sent in the Federal troops reluctantly, was
waiting in Washington to see what measures the State authori-
ties would take to put an end to the prevailing civil war. By
Saturday morning he had come to realize that no adequate
measures were being taken, and he sent from Washington a
telegram to Governor Ammons of Colorado :

Am disturbed to hear of the probability of the adjournment of
your legislature, and feel bound to remind you that my constitutional
obligations with regard to the maintenance of order in Colorado are
not to be indefinitely continued by the inaction of the State legislature.
The Federal forces are there only until the State of Colorado has
time and opportunity to resume complete sovereignty and control in
the matter. I cannot conceive that the State is willing to forego her
sovereignty, or to throw herself entirely upon the government of the
United States, and I am quite clear that she has no constitutional
right to do so when it is within the power of her legislature to t^e
effective action.

And now begins a story of political crookedness, the like
of which had never come under my personal observation. I
had been in Denver four days, and had opportunity to meet a
score of people who knew the situation intimately, and who
were able to put me on the "inside." So I can invite you
into the Governor's private office at eleven o'clock on Saturday

156 The Brass Check

morning, when the above telegram from President Wilson
arrived. First, let me describe this Governor, as I wrote about
him in the "Denver Express" :

I went yesterday afternoon to see your Governor. I wish to be
Very careful what I say of him. He is apparently a kindly man; in
intellectual caliber fitted for the duties of a Sunday-School superin-
tendent in a small village. He is one of the most pitiful figures it
has ever been my fate to encounter. He pleaded with me that he
was a ranchman, a workingman, that he was ignorant about such
matters as mines. When I pointed out to him that, according to
government figures, there were twelve times as many miners killed and
injured by accidents in the southern Colorado fields as elsewhere, his
only answer was that he had heard some vague statement to the
effect that conditions were different in other places. He pleaded
tearfully that he had brought upon himself the hatred of everyone,
he admitted that he was utterly bewildered, and had no idea what
to do in this crisis. His every word made evident his utter ignorance
of the_ economic forces which have produced this frightful situation.
He cried out for some solution ; yet, every time that I sought to
suggest^ a solution, and to pin him down to a "yes" or a "no" upon
a certain course_ of action, he lost control of himself and cried out
that I was trying to make him "express an opinion." He, the
Governor of the State, had no business to have opinions about such
a dispute !

It is no accident, of course, that a man of this type comes
to be governor of a State like Colorado. The corporations
deliberately select such men because they wish to be let alone,
and they prefer men who are too weak to interfere with
them, even if they wish to interfere. So now at eleven o'clock
on Saturday morning this poor pitiful Governor sends for his
advisors — ^the leaders of the hand-picked machine majority in
the State legislature. What is to be done? If the President's
telegram is sent to the legislature, it may refuse to adjourn,
and insist upon considering the President's demand. There-
fore, at all hazards, the telegram must be suppressed. Also,
it must be sent to the coal-operators in the city, in order that
they may consult and tell the Governor what reply to make to
the President. All the newspaper men in Denver knew the
names of the two men who took the message about to the
operators. It was considered by the operators for three or
four hours, and a reply drafted and sent ; and meantime des-
perate efforts were made by the machine leaders to obtain
the adjournment of the legislature. The reply drafted by the
operators and sent by the Governor was as follows:

A Gk>VERNOR AND HiS LlE 157

Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, Washington:
_ I regret exceedingly that you have been misinformed. The
legislature has just passed an act, which I have approved, providing
for a bond issue of one million dollars for the purpose of paying the
indebtedness which has been incurred and which may be incurred in
suppressing insurrection and defending the State. As soon as these
bonds can be issued, these funds will be available and this State
can and will control the situation. This is the only constitutional
method of raising funds in immediate future. In addition to this
act the legislature has enacted a law permitting the Governor to
close saloons in time of disorder, and also a law prohibiting the
carrying and disposition of firearms in time of disorder. Moreover, a
committee on mediation on the present strike has been provided for
and appointed.

Now the heart of our story is this last sentence in the
Governor's telegram: this "committee on mediation on the
present strike." If such a committee had been appointed,
the legislature might fairly claim to have done its best to
settle the strife. But had such a committee been appointed?
It had not. The coal-operators, confused by the President's
sudden action, had caused their poor Governor to telegraph
the President a lie; and now all their agencies of repression
were brought to bear to keep the truth, not merely from the
President, but from the whole country. " '

First of all, it must be kept from the State legislature it-
self ! A senator tried to have the President's telegram
and the Governor's answer read in the senate, but by parlia-
mentary juggling this was prevented. All debate was forbid-
den ; but a Democratic woman senator, Helen Ring Robinson,
succeeded in getting in a few words of protest, under the
guise of an "explanation" of her vote. Senator Robinson
read the last sentence of the Governor's answer : "Moreover a
committee on mediation on the present strike has been provided
for and appointed." Said Senator Robinson : "I know of no
such committee which has been appointed by this assembly."

Lieutenant-Governor Fitzgarald replied that the resolution
providing for the "strike investigating committee" provided
for mediation. ' *"

"But," protested Senator Robinson, "I can't find a sentence
in that resolution that mentions 'mediation.' I can't see a
word on 'mediation' in the resolutions." ^

"Whereupon" (I am quoting the account from the "Rocky
Mountain News" of May IT'th), "Senator A. N. Parrigh, con-
servative Republican, objected that the motion was not de-

158 The Brass Check

batable. Further discussion was shut off, the motion to read
the President's telegram was laid on the table, and the senate
adjourned."

Now on that critical Saturday evening it happened that
I was a guest at the home of the late Chief Justice Steele of
Colorado, and there I met Senator Robinson. She asked me
if I could not do something to make this matter clear to the
country. Could I, for example, find out if the Associated Press
had gotten the point straight? With the Senator sitting by
my side I called the Associated Press on the 'phone and spoke
with Mr. A. C. Rowsey, its night-editor in charge in Denver.
I told Mr. Rowsey that I was in consultation with an op-
position Senator, and that my attention had been called to this
point, which I endeavored to explain.

Mr. Rowsey laughed good naturedly at my effort to en-
lighten his great institution. He informed me that they had
trained men up at the capitol watching every point of the
procedure, and that they had got the story quite correct. I
endeavored to make the precise point about the phrase
"mediation" ; but not having any copy of the proceedings be-
fore me, and being really unable to believe that Senator Robin-
son could be correct in attributing such an open falsehood to
the Governor of the State, I permitted Mr. Rowsey to back
me down, and hung up the receiver feeling that I had made a
fool of myself.

But later that evening I went to the office of the "Rocky
Mountain News," where I was able to see a copy of the ofificial
record in the case, the House Journal of the proceedings of
May 15, 1914. The measure was contained on pages 7, 8, and
9, and on page 47 there was an amendment. I read the bill
and amendment, line by line, and I did not find in it the
word "mediation." The measure provided as follows :

Resolved, That a joint committee of six members, three selected
by the senate and three by the house, said members to be selected by
the body of each house shall be appointed and directed to confer and
advise with the Governor and otiier executive officers of the State
to the end that the legislative department may render all assistance
in its power to the executive department in the enforcement of law
and the maintenance of order, and to consider ways and means of
restoring and maintaining peace and good order throughout the State ;
and to investigate and make report at the next session of the
legislature upon the following matters and subjects:

The bill then goes on to outline an elaborate series of

A GOVEENOE AND HiS LlE 169

matters for investigation — whether the coal companies have
obeyed the laws; what wages they have paid; the terms of
the mining leases; the employment of gunmen; what efforts
have been made to settle the strike, etc. The amendment
provides for further inquiry into the names of strike leaders,
their nationality, etc., and the causes of violence. These sub-
jects were, of course, enough to occupy a committee for many
months. There was nowhere in the bill anything suggested
about settling the present strike. On the contrary, the express
task of the committee was said to be "to generally investigate
all matters connected with said strike ; that remedial legislation
may be enacted at the next General Assembly which will tend
to prevent a recurrence of insurrection and public disorder."

Now, do not think that I am juggling words over the
question of the precise meaning of the above bill. The dis-
tinction between the bill which had actually been passed, and
the bill which the Governor told President Wilson had been
passed, was vital and fundamental. Here was a desperate
struggle, the class-war in literal truth, involving the two
greatest forces in modern society. The whole State was torn
apart over it, and if anybody were going to "mediate" and
"settle" it, the whole State wished to know it, and must have
known it. At the time that this investigation bill was passed,
it was an investigation bill and nothing else, and this was un-
derstood by everyone who had anything to do with it. The
measure was regarded as of so little importance that the
"Rocky Mountain News" of the day after its passage did not
even refer to it. It was one more "committee to investigate,"
and the State was sick of such. By actual count there had
been more than sixty such committees appointed already — one
of them a committee from Congress, which had taken testimony
filling ten volumes ! It was perfectly understood by everyone
that the purpose of this new legislative committee was to
collect a lot of facts prejudicial to the strikers. Its members
were all machine politicians of the very worst type. The idea
of such a committee attempting to "mediate," or to "settle the
strike," would have been regarded as a joke by the whole
State ; but no one had any such idea. It was not until Governor
Ammons and his advisors found themselves "in a hole," that
they hit upon the scheme of calling this a "committee on
mediation."

160 The Brass Check

Also, let us get clear the purpose of this trickery. The
purpose was to keep the President of the United States from
intervening to force a compromise, as he was threatening to do.
The legislature was to be adjourned, and the President was
to find himsejf in a position where he would have to keep the
Federal troops in the field and do the work of repression
which the prostituted State militia of Colorado could no longer
do. Such was the plan — and I might add that it was carried
out completely.

r Next morning, by consulting with other members of the
legislature, and with several lawyers in Denver, I made quite
certain of the facts. Also I made certain that the Associated
Press had sent out no hint of these facts. The Associated
Press had sent merely the President's telegram and the Gover-
nor's answer. Presumably, therefore, the President had swal-
lowed the Governor's lie. Beyond question the country had
swallowed it. It seemed to me that here was an occasion for
an honest man to make his voice heard ; so I sent a telegram
to President Wilson, as follows :

President Woodrow Wilson, Washington, D. C:

As one in position to observe from inside the events in this capital,
I respectfully call your attention to the lack of fairness of Governor
Ammons in withholding your telegram from the legislature for four
hours while efforts were made to adjourn. AH newspaper men know
that during that time your telegram was in the hands of all coal-
operators in this city, and they know the men who took it to them.
Furthermore, they know that Governor Ammons' telegram to you con-
tains a falsehood. The word "mediation" did not appear in the
measure referred to, which provides for investigation only. There has
been a ten-volume investigation already. Governor Ammons declared
to me personally that he means to return the militia to the strike-fields.
Twenty independent investigators, reporters, lawyers, relief-workers
assure me result will be civil war on a scale never before known in
American labor dispute. Miners by thousands pledged to die ratiier
than submit to more government by gunmen.

Upton Sinclaik.

I took this telegram on Sunday evening to the editor of the
"Rocky Mountain News." He said, "It is a splendid telegram ;
it covers the case." I said, "Will you publish it?" He
answered, "I will." I said, "Will the Associated Press get it
from the News?" He answered, "It will." It might be well
to finish this part of the matter by stating that on the next
evening I had a conversation with Mr. Rowsey, in charge of

A Governor and His Lie 161

the Associated Press, as follows : "Did you get my telegram
from the 'News'?" "We did." "You did not send it out, I
believe?" "We did not."

The "Rocky Mountain News" had been for many years a
hide-bound corporation newspaper, but at this moment the
owner of the paper had, so I was told, some kind of a personal
quarrel with the coal operators. At any rate, he had placed
in charge a young Chicago newspaper man, Wm. L. Chenery,
with orders to publish the truth. That the "News" was not
favoring me personally will be clearly seen from the fact that
on Tuesday morning it published a ferocious attack upon me
by Gov. Ammons, and refused to publish a word of what I
offered in reply. Nevertheless, on Monday morning the
"News" published a two-column editorial headed: "To the
Patriots of Colorado." Says the "News": "Not one word
about mediation is contained in the entire resolution. The
committee is given no power to mediate. They may investi-
gate, examine and report, and that is all." And elsewhere the
(editorial says: "A committee on mediation has not been pro-
vided for ; and none has been appointed. Think of the inutter-
able weakness of such conduct ! Think of its stupidity !"

Such was the voice of unprejudiced opinion in the city of
Denver on the subject of the Governor's telegram. And what
did the country hear about the controversy? Not a word!
The Associated Press had all facts. It came to the "News"
ofi^ce and got everything the "News" had ; and it sent out not
one word ! On the contrary, the Associated Press did its best
to persuade the country that the President was pleased with
Ammons' reply. It sent out the following:

Washington, May 16. — President Wilson expressed satisfaction
with the situation after he received Governor Ammons' reply late to-
night. It was said by officials in close touch with the President that
Wilson was greatly pleased with what had been done after he had
been informed by Governor Ammons of the work of the Colorado
legislature, and that he hoped the State would assume control of the
situation in the near future so the Federal troops might be withdrawn.

That this was an Associated Press invention, made to help
out the poor Governor, was made clear the next morning by
the "News," whose own correspondent wired the following :

Washington, May 17. — At the White House it was stated that
nothing had been given out which would justify the statement printed
in some of th'fe morning papers that the President is entirely satisfied
with the telegram received yesterday from Governor Ammons.
11

163 The Brass Check

I was by this time thoroughly wrought up over the situa-
tion, determined that the country should somehow hear the
truth. I besieged the offices of the Denver newspapers; as a
result the "Denver Post," on Monday afternoon, published on
its front page, with a heading in large red letters, an interview
with Governor Ammons, in which that worthy denounced me
as an "itinerant investigator," also as a "prevaricator." The
Governor's defense on the point at issue was this :

In regard to Sinclair's declaration that the word "mediation'' did
not appear in the resolution appointing a committee to investigate the
strike, Ammons explained :

"Probably that particular word does not occur, but a reading of
the resolution will show that it gives the legislative committee power
'to assist in settling the strike.' If that isn't mediation I'd like to know
the true meaning of the word."

I felt pretty sick when I read that interview ; I thought the
Governor must "have" me for sure! With sinking heart I
went and procured a copy of the House Journal, to see if I
could possibly have overlooked such a phrase as "to assist in
settling the strike." I read over line by line the three pages
of the bill, and the one page of amendment ; and, behold, there
was no such phrase: "to assist in settling the strike." There
was nothing in any way remotely suggesting it ! On the con-
trary, there was the explicit statement of the purposes of the
committee "to generally investigate all matters connected with
said strike; that remedial legislation may be enacted at the

NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY wMch will tend tO prevent A RECUK-
RENCE OF INSURRECTION AND PUBLIC DISORDER."

The Governor had lied again !

So then I wrote the Governor a letter. I said :

You have relied upon the fact that the man in the street has not
access to the volume of the House Journal, and will accept your state-
ments upon their face. This, of course, puts me at a cruel disad-
vantage, for you are a prominent official and I am only an "itinerant
investigator." But I propose, if possible, to compel you to face this
issue. I will name two friends as a committee to represent me to
settle this question at issue. I request you to name two friends. I
request you to point out to them in the measure in question the word
"mediation" or the phrase "to assist in settling the strike." Your two
friends will then bring it to my two friends, who, seeing the phrase in
print in the House Journal, will be obliged to admit that I am wrong.
You have objected to my presence in the State, upon the ground that
I am meddling in the affairs of the people of Colorado. Very well,
sir, I hereby offer you a simple way to rid the State of my presence.

A Governor and His Lie 163

1 hereby agree that if your two friends can point out to my two friends
the word or phrase in question, I will quit the borders of your State
within twenty-four hours and never return to it. Upon your acceptance
of this proposition, I shall name my two friends.

This letter was mailed to the Governor on Monday night ;
also copies were mailed to the newspapers. At ten o'clock
Tuesday morning, while dictating my article for the "Appeal
to Reason," I called up Mr. F. G. Bonfils, editor in charge and
one of the owners of the "Denver Post." The following con-
versation occurred:

"Good morning, Mr. Bonfils ; this is Upton Sinclair. Did
you receive the copy of the letter which I mailed to Governor
Ammons last night ?"

"I did."

"May I ask if you intend to publish it?"

"J do not."

"May I ask what is your reason for refusing?"

"The reason is that things have been stirred up enough, we
think. The people in this city want peace."

"Does it seem to you that this is fair journalism ?"

"Now, listen, my boy, don't try to argue with me ; you have
had plenty of room to spread your ideas in our paper."

"You are entirely mistaken, Mr. Bonfils. You have not
reported a single speech that I made in this town. You did
not even print my telegram to President Wilson. But you
print the Governor's answer to it."

"Well, now, we don't want to stir up this question any
further. We think this State is very much in need of peace.
We are not looking for trouble. If we printed your answer
to the Governor, we should have to print the Governor's
answer to you. And so it would go on indefinitely, and we
don't want people calling each other names in our paper."

"If that is the case, why did you print the Governor's attack
upon me ?"

"Now, listen, kid, don't get excited." - .

"I was never less excited in my life, Mr. Bonfils. I am
simply asking politely for an explanation."

"Well, now, we don't care to argue this question with you."

"You have called me a liar in your paper, and refuse me an
opportunity to defend myself ? Is that correct ?"

"Yes ; it's correct."

"Well, then I simply wish to tell you this one further thing.

164 The Bbass Check

I am at present in a stenographer's office dictating an account
of this conversation for a publication which has a circulation
of five hundred thousand "

"I don't care if it has a circulation of five hundred million."

"Then you are willing for this conversation to be reported
as expressing the attitude of the 'Post' ?"

"Say, Bill, we have been attacked so often by fellows like
you, and we have got so prosperous on it, that we don't care
anything about it."

"Very well, then ; good morning."

The above conversation was recorded in the following way.
The stenographer sat by my side at the telephone, and took
down every word that I said. Immediately afterwards this
was read off to me, and I filled in Mr. Bonfils' answers. As
it happens that I have a good memory for words, I can state
that the above is for practical purposes a stenographic record
of the conversation. And later on I went out and bought an
early edition of the "Post," and found the man had "carried
over" the Governor's attack, a reprint from the day before!
And then, walking down the street, I came to the building of
the "Post," and looked up and saw — oh, masterpiece of humor 1
— an inscription graven all the way across the stone front of
the building:

JUSTICE, WHEN EXPELLED FROM OTHER HABITA-
TIONS, MAKE THIS THY DWELLING-PLACE.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AT THE BAR

Let us return to Monday evening, and to our main theme,
the Associated Press. I saw here my long-awaited chance to
put this organization on record. I believed, and still believe,
that this was a perfect case of news-suppression. Here was
the closest approach yet made to social revolution in America ;
here was the class-war, naked and undisguised — on the one
side the lives of thirty or forty thousand wage-slaves, on the
other side a hundred million dollars of invested capital, con-
trolling the government of an entire state, and using this
control to suppress every legal and constitutional right of
American citizens, and to drive them to armed revolt. To this
conspiracy the Associated Press had lent itself; it was being
used, precisely as the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, pre-
cisely as the puppets of the State government. The directors
and managers of the Associated Press were as directly respon-
sible for the subsequent starvation of these thousands of
Colorado mine-slaves as if they had taken them and strangled
them with their naked fingers. If it had been such individual
crimes of strangling, all society would have agreed on the need
of publicity. I have made it my task in life to force the same
kind of publicity for the economic crimes of predatory social
classes. I considered now that the time for action had come,
and as my final test of the "A. P." I prepared a second tele-
gram to President Wilson, as follows ;

President Woodrow Wilson, Washington, D. C:

In interview tonight. Governor Amnions brands me as prevaricator
for my statement to you that commission of mediation was not pro-
vided. He now admits the word "mediation" does not appear, but
insists that the phrase "to assist in settling the strike" is equivalent.
No such phrase occurs. I urgently request you to get the full text of
this resolution and realize what it means that the Governor of this
State is wilfully and deliberately endeavoring to deceive you and the
public in this crisis.

Wishing to make quite certain in this vital matter, I took
the trouble to write out my plan of action, and took it to a
personal friend, a leading newspaper editor in Denver. He
said, "Don't do it." I asked, "Why not?" The answer was,

165

166 The Beass Check

"It will make you so many powerful enemies that you will be
unable to do anything more to send out news." I answered
that I had never been able to do anything with the Associated
Press — it was always and invariably closed to what I had to
say, and only mentioned me when it had something considered
discreditable, such as my being sent to jail. My friend
answered, "Well, if you can stand being hated and suppressed
for the balance of your life, go ahead."

I could stand that. So I took the volume of the House
Journal and a copy of my telegram to President Wilson, and
went down to the office of the Associated Press in the Ernest &
Cranmer Building, and saw Mr. A. C. Rowsey, with whom I
had talked over the phone the night before. He was very
pleasant and friendly; and I wish to state that the attitude
manifested by the Associated Press in this test case was in no
way due to any personal difficulty or ill feeling. Mr. Rowsey
showed himself a gracious host, and I never had a more pleas-
ant interview with anyone.

I showed him the House Journal, and he read the four
pages with interest. He read my telegram to the President,
and then stated that they would refuse to carry it, as they had
refused to carry the one they had got from the "News" on the
previous day. His explanation was that it was the policy of
the Associated Press "to avoid controversy." If they once got
started they would never know where to stop.

I said, "But Mr. Rowsey, this controversy is the most
important item of news on the Colorado situation tonight. I
have here put before you indisputable documentary evidence
that Governor Ammons has lied to President Wilson; and
surely the public would want to know that fact. Surely the
public has at least a right to know of the charge, and to make
up its own mind as to its truth or falsity." Mr. Rowsey's
answer was, "Our wire from Colorado is very much crowded
these days, and this controversy does not seem to us to be
news." I said, "Very well, Mr. Rowsey ; will you now permit
me to hand to you this letter, which I have drafted to serve
as a record of the circumstances."

He took the letter and read as follows :

Denver, Colo., May 18, 1914.
Correspondent Assooated Pkess,

Denver, Colorado.
Dear Sir:

Yesterday I sent President Wilson a telegram, which I believed

The "A. P." at the Bar ler

and still believe was of vital public importance, A copy of this tele-
gram was put into your hands last night by the "Rocky Mountain
News" and was refused by you. I now offer you a second telegram,
bearing upon this subject. At the same time I offer for your inspec-
tion a copy of the House Journal in order that you may verify the
truth of the statements contained in my telegram to President Wilson.
I shall first, in a personal interview, politely request you to send this
telegram over your wires. If you refuse to do so, I shall — in order to
put you upon record — ^place this letter in- your hands and request you
to sign the statement below. If you refuse to sign it, I shall under-
stand that you refuse to send out this telegram over your wires, and I
shall proceed to send it to the papers myself, and I shall subsequently
take steps to make these circumstances known to the public.

Respectfully,

Upton Sinclaik,

Mr. Upton Sinclaih, City :

Dear Sir: — The undersigned, correspondent of the Associated
Press in Denver, agrees to send your telegram to President Wilson
over its wires tonight.

Mr. Rowsey read this letter and handed it back to me, with
the smiling remark : "I see you are getting a good story." I
thanked him, and left. I went down-stairs to the tekgraph-
office and sent a copy of my telegram to President Wilson to
a selection of newspapers all over the country. They were as
follows: New York "Times," "World," "Herald," "Sun" and
"Call"; Chicago "Examiner" and "Tribune"; Philadelphia
"North American" and "Press"; Baltimore "Sun"; Wash-
ington "Times"; Boston "Herald" and "Journal"; Topeka
"Journal"; Kansas City "Star"; Milwaukee "Journal"; At-
lanta "Georgian"; New Orleans "Times-Democrat"; Omaha
"Ne^s"; Pittsburg "Post."

Now, I submit that here is a definite test of the service of
the Associated Press. Is it sending out all the material which
its papers want ? Is it suppressing anything which its papers
would be glad to publish if they could get it? Let the reader
observe that these newspapers are not merely radical and pro-
gressive ones; they include some of the staunchest stand-pat
papers in the country, the New York "Times" and "Herald,"
for example. They are all save two or three of them Asso-
ciated Press papers. To make the test automatic I sent the
telegrams "collect." The editors had the right to read the
message, and if they did not want it, to refuse to pay for it,
having it sent back to me for collection. Out of the twenty
papers, how many took this step? Only five! The other

168 The Brass Check

fifteen took the story that the Associated Press refused to
send out. This is a remarkable showing, considering the fact
that I sent the telegram late in the evening, and too late for
most of the Eastern papers. It should be pointed out that a
newspaper editor is far less disposed to print a dispatch which
comes from an unauthorized person. My charge was a star-
tling one, and an editor would naturally doubt it. He would
say, "If it is true, why doesn't the Associated Press send it?"
Mr. Rowsey, in Denver, had the House Journal before him;
but the city editors of newspapers all over the country did not
have this advantage, and would naturally be disposed to rely
upon Mr. Rowsey.

It might be worth while to add that the claims made in my
two telegrams to President Wilson were fully vindicated by
subsequent events. The committee of six machine legislators,
appointed to collect material discreditable to the strikers and
their leaders, proceeded to vindicate the Governor and redeem
his reputation by going through a pretense of "mediation";
but the public paid so little attention to the farce that it petered
out in two or three days. The strike lasted for another seven
months, and all that time the Federal troops remained in the
field — ^the very thing which President Wilson had declared
himself determined to avoid, and which the coal-operators had
been determined to force upon him !

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND ITS NEWSPAPERS

I am giving a great deal of space in a small book to this
one test of the Associated Press. I think that the subject is
an important one, and that the documents in the case should
be available to students. In the present chapter I give the
reaction of the press of America to this particular test. If the
reader is not interested in such details, he may skip this
chapter.

I have talked over this case with many lawyers, and shown
them the documents, and asked: "Is there any legal flaw in
them?" They have never been able to point out one. Also
I have talked the case .over with journalists — some of the most
eminent of capitalist journalists, as I shall presently narrate,
and have asked them to point out a flaw. They have pointed
out what they think is a flaw — ^that in presenting to the Asso-
ciated Press my telegram to President Wilson, I was asking
the Associated Press to give publicity to my name and per-
sonality, and the Associated Press might have been justified
in refusing the request.

I answer that there were many ways in which the "A. P."
could have handled this matter without mentioning my name :
a fact which I plainly pointed out to Mr. Rowsey. The first
time I spoke to him — over the telephone — I was speaking, not
for myself, but for Senator Robinson. She, a duly elected
representative of the people of Colorado, speaking in their
legislature, had nailed the Governor's lie, and it was Mr.
Rowsey's unquestionable duty to report her words. It was
only when I realized how completely the "A. P." was in the
hands of the coal-operators that I "butted in" on the matter
at all. And when my telegram was refused by Mr. Rowsey, I
was careful to point out to him that there were other ways he
might handle this news. He might give the story as coming
from Senator Robinson; he might send extracts from the
editorial of the "Rocky Mountain News"; he might send a
dispatch saying, "It is generally reported in Denver," or "Pro-
tests are being made in Denver." All this I made clear, and

169

170 The Beass Check

he in return made clear why he did not do so. Anyone who
had been present at our long and partly humorous interview
would have perceived that this was no error in judgment of an
individual employe of the "A. P.," but a definite policy of the
great machine. Mr. Rowsey went so far as to say to me that
he was a Socialist, in sympathy with iny point of view, and
that he personally wotdd have been willing to send out a
straight story.

In exactly the same way, when I took this story to various
newspapers and magazines, I tried to suppress my own per-
sonality. I said to the editors: "If you are not willing to
discuss the grievance of Upton Sinclair, then make an investi-
gation of your own. Send a representative to Denver and
interview Senator Robinson and write about the eflforts of a
progressive woman senator for fair play in this strike. Take
the telegrams which passed between the President and the
Governor of Colorado, take the pretenses of the fake media-
tion commission and the false reports of the Associated Press
about it, and write the story without mentioning my name."
But all such suggestions were in vain. There was no capitalist
magazine or newspaper in the United States that would
take up the conduct of the Associated Press in the Colorado
strike.

In one of its published statements in the "New York
Evening Post," the Associated Press had explained its stem
attitude toward the editors of the "Masses":

The Associated Press is not prosecuting the case in any vengeful
spirit, but is fighting for a public vindication. For_ several years the
association has sat silent under accusations of this kind, reflecting
upon the integrity of the service and the personal honor of its respon-
sible officers, because the charges were made either on the floor of
Congress, where no redress is possible, or by persons who were careful
or lucky in avoiding the legal limitations of civil or criminal libel. In
several cases the persons making the charges retracted them absolutely.
At last they have a case involving libel per se, and they purpose to
avail themselves of the opportunity to present to the public the facts
regarding the service.

This, you perceive, is dignified and impressive ; dignity and
impressiveness are virtues permissible to great capitalist insti-
tutions. But now make note : my challenge to the Associated
Press, published in the "Appeal to Reason," repeated the
identical words for which the editors of the "Masses" had
been arrested ; and I sent a copy to all the leading oi5ficers of

The "A. P." and Its Newspapers 171

the Associated Press; I afterwards saw a letter, signed by
Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press,
acknowledging that he had seen it. Here surely was a charge
"involving libel per se," and one which I had taken pains to
make as emphatic, as unconditional, as damaging as possible.
It was a public challenge, appearing on the front page of a
newspaper whose circulation for that week was five hundred
and forty-eight thoiisand and forty. Yet the Associated Press
did not take up the challenge ; it swallowed the insult.

Not only that, but every newspaper having the Associated
Press service did the same; some nine hundred newspapers
throughout the United States sat in silence and let this chal-
lenge pass unanswered. I had the "Appeal to Reason" send a
marked copy of this issue to every one of the nine hundred
Associated Press papers, and I wrote to my clipping-bureau,
asking them to watch especially for mention of the matter.
This clipping-bureau is the best in the country, and seldom
misses anjrthing of importance. It could not find me a single
mention of my challenge to the Associated Press.

I next selected a list of forty of the leading papers of the
country, including the twenty to which I had sent the telegram
from Denver. I sent them a marked copy of the article, with
a letter addressed to the managing editor, pointing out what
my challenge meant — that I had publicly indicted the source
from which this paper got the news which it gave to the public.
Would the paper defend the integrity of its news ? Would it
force the Associated Press to explain this incident. Three
papers replied to my letter. I shall deal with them a little
later. The other thirty-seven papers left my letter unanswered.
And let it be noted that this included all the papers which
make the greatest pose of dignity and honor, such as the
"Boston Evening Transcript," the "Springfield Republican,"
the "New York Times," the "Philadelphia Public Ledger,"
the "Baltimore Sun," the "Chicago Tribune," the "Louisville
Courier-Journal," the "Memphis Commercial-Appeal," the
"Atlanta Constitution." Also, I tried the magazines. One
week after the publication of my challenge to the Associated
Press there had appeared in "Collier's Weekly" a leading
editorial entitled "In Justice to the A. P." :

The officers and members of the Associated Press have been kept
busy lately repelling attacks upon that organization. In so far as they
are defending themselves from the charge of virilful distortion of the

172 The Brass Check

news, we sympathize with them. Six or seven years ago we printed a
series of articles which dealt with the general subject of "tainted news,"
and from time to time since then we have pointed out examples of this
insidious practice. During this time not less than a score of persons
have come to us with alleged examples of tampering with the news on
the part of the Associated Press. AH of these cases we looked into
with care and pains, and many of the same were investigated by other
publications and persons. We have never found a case that justified
us in publishing the details or in making any charge of wilful distor-
tion against the Associated Press.

I wrote now to "Collier's Weekly." They had investigated
a score of cases, here was one more. Would they agree to
investigate this, and to publish the facts? To this challenge
"Collier's Weekly" made no response. "Collier's Weekly" did
not investigate, and it never published a line about the matter.
Then I wrote to the editors of the "Outlook," the extremely
pious instrument of the "clerical camouflage." In its issue of
May 30, 1914, the "Outlook" had published two articles dealing
with the Associated Press. I now wrote and invited it to take
up this case, and the "Outlook" did not reply. Also I wrote
"The Independent," which was once a liberal paper, and it too
refused any publicity.

To return to the three newspapers which answered my
letter: Mr. Frederick S. Forbes, acting managing editor of
the "Philadelphia North American," replied that his paper had
"frequently had occasion to criticize the news distributing
agencies of the country," and would investigate my story. That
was the last I ever heard from the matter. When I wrote to
remind the "Philadelphia North American," they did not
answer. In the course of a year I wrote several times, but
they did not answer.

And then the "New York World." The "World" had pub-
lished a challenge, defying anyone to point out where it had
failed to print important news. I now took this case of the
Associated Press to the "World," and the "World" answered
that having published my telegram to the President from
Denver, the "World" had published the news! The fact that
the "World" had got this telegram from me instead of from
the Associated Press — ^that was not news! The fact that I
had published a challenge, deliberately repeating the words of
the "Masses" editors, and that the Associated Press and all
its newspapers had passed my challenge by — ^that was not
news, in the judgment of the "World"!

, The "A. P." and Its Newspapers 173

The third paper which replied to me was the "New York
Evening Post" ; the only one which took up the matter in what
I considered the proper spirit. Mr. John P. Gavit, managing
editor of the "Evening Post," wrote as follows :

Your letter of recent date, together with the exhibit embodied in
the first page of the "Appeal to Reason" for May 30th, is hereby
acknowledged. I have undertaken an investigation of the matter which
will take considerable time and I am writing now only to prevent
your having the mistaken impression that your communication is to be
ignored. I attach for your information copy of a self-explanatory
letter which I have addressed to Mr. Melville E. Stone, General
Manager of The Associated Press.

Dear Mr. Stone:

I hancl you herewith copy of the letter which we have received
from Mr. Upton Sinclair, together with a page from the "Appeal to
Reason" published at Girard, Kansas, under date of May 30th, 1914.
I have been out of town, which fact will explain my delay in taking
this matter up with you.

I am perfectly aware of Mr. Sinclair's reputation among newspaper
men as an insatiable hunter of personal publicity; but it seems to me
that his telegram to President Wilson, making specific allegations in
connection with a matter of the utmost public consequence at a critical
time, ought to have been transmitted by the Associated Press men at
Denver. Of course, it is perfectly absurd for any Associated Press
man to say that it is the policy of the Associated Press "to avoid con-
troversy" ; that theory of the service is long out of date, and two-thirds
of its news reports relate to controversies in one way or another. I
have not examined the reports of the matters to which Mr. Sinclair
refers, but on its face his article certainly creates a prima facie of
suppression of important facts regarding the situation at Denver. At
the time to which he refers, I realize that the Denver correspondent
was in a very difficult position in all this business, but in this case
I think he made a palpable mistake.

It is evidently necessary under the circumstances that the "Evening
Post" should deal with this subject, and I shall be glad to have at your
early convenience any statement which you will be willing to have
published over your signature. I personally believe that this should
include some explanation from the Denver correspondent as to his
reason for refusing to mention Sinclair's telegram to the President;
though, of course, that is a matter entirely within your discretion.

Yours very truly,

John P, GAvrr,
Managing Editor.

The above letter was perfectly satisfactory to me. It did
not trouble me what either Mr. Gavit or Mr. Stone thought
about my reputation among newspaper men. All that I was
concerned about, all that I have ever been concerned about,
was that the truth about social injustice should be made public.

174 The Brass Check

Mr. Gavit sent me a copy of Mr. Stone's reply, promising to
make an immediate investigation of the matter and report. I
felt so sure of the outcome that I ventured to make an
announcement in the "Appeal," June 30, 1914, to the effect
that the "A. P." was to be "smoked out," it was to be com-
pelled to answer my charges.

But alas for my hopes of fair play, my faith in the organ
of arm-chair respectability ! Time passed, and I wrote to Mr.
Gavit, again reminding him of his promises, and in reply he
asked me to call to see him. I called, and found myself up
against the concrete wall. Mr. Gavit was as polite as I could
have requested; all that he failed in was action. He would
not tell me the result of the investigation which Mr. Stone had
made, or had promised to make. He would not tell me any-
thing, except that the case was a subtle and difficult one to
judge, and that he could not see his way to take it up. I quoted
to him his letter to Mr. Stone, "It is evidently necessary under
the circumstances that the 'Evening Post' should deal with this
subject"; Mr. Gavit was uncomfortable and embarrassed, but
he would not make good his words, nor would he publish in
the "Evening Post" the facts about my challenge to the Asso-
ciated Press. He never published a line about it, and on the
basis of the facts above stated, I believe that I can claim to
have proven positively that the "New York Evening Post" is
not what it pretends to be, a newspaper serving the public
interest.

' I make the same claim concerning the "New York Times."
The "Times" did not answer my letter, it did not pay any
attention to me ; but it happens that I read the "Times," and
know some of its editors, so I went after it again and again.
I will quote from the last of my letters, so that the reader may
see how desperately I tried to get something done :

New York City, June 15, 1914.
Editoi!, the New York Times :

Some time ago I wrote you a letter with regard to charges I had
made against the Associated Press. I asked you to consider these
charges and lay them before your readers, and give them an oppor-
tunity to decide of their truth. Not hearing from you, I wrote a
second time, to ask you to do me the courtesy to let me know your
intentions in the matter. Still not hearing from you, I assume that
it is your intention to treat my communication with contempt. I want
to call your attention to the fact that in writing to you I am making a
test of the sense of honor of your publication. I am putting you on
record, and I shall find means to make your attitude known to the

The "A. P." and Its Newspapers 175

public. You are an Associated Press newspaper, and your honor is
definitely bound up with that of the organization which serves you.
You sell Associated Press news to the public. If the Associated Press
news is false news, you are selling false news to the public, and you
are refusing the public any opportunity to judge a most serious, a
carefully documented charge that this news is false. It is true that
you published my telegram to the President in one edition of your
paper. But it is also true that you published it only because I sent
it to you. The Associated Press did not send it to you. And I cannot
always be in Colorado, and cannot always make it my business to
supply you with antidotes to the poison which you are getting from
the Associated Press. Only today, for example, you are, through the
agency of the Associated Press, responsible for suppressing an impor-
tant piece of news from Colorado: that is to say, the fact that Judge
Lindsey has issued a statement defending himself, and especially the
women who went with him, agiinst the charges which have been made
against them by the "interests" in Colorado. The "New York World"
gave that letter a column, from its special correspondent., The "New
York Call," having the Laffan Service, also had some account of the
letter. You, having the Associated Press service, have not a word about
it. And this is a vital and most important piece of news.

I then went on to tell about the "Evening Post" and its
promise to investigate. I said :

The "Times" is involved in the matter in exactly the same way,
and to exactly the same extent as the "Evening Post." The "Times"
published the officially inspired defense of the Associated Press in
exactly the same way as the "Evening Post." I believe that it is up to
you to explain the reasons for your silence in this matter. I believe
that if you maintain silence, I shall be justified in declaring to all the
world that you have shown yourself in this matter a newspaper without
a high sense of honor, and false to the motto which you carry, "All the
News that's Fit to Print." I assure you that I shail make this charge
against you on many occasions in future. You may think that the
five hundred thousand a week circulation of the "Appeal to Reason"
is a factor which you can afford to neglect, but I believe that in the
course of time you will realize that you were mistaken in permitting
me to place you on record in this matter.

So ends the story of my test of the Associated Press and
its newspapers. In the second part of this book, which deals
with causes, I shall -return to the subject, and show exactly
why these things happen: Why the "New York Times" is
without honor where the Associated Press is concerned, and
just how many thousands of dollars it would have cost the
"New York Evening Post" if its managing editor had carried
out his bold promise to me.

CHAPTER XXIX
THE SCANDAL-BUREAU

There is one other incident which must be told before I
finish with the subject of Denver, its criminal government and
prostitute newspapers. I had been in Denver before, also I
had read Ben Lindsey's "The Beast"; so I knew, before I
arrived, what I might expect to encounter. Standing in the
Pennsylvania station, bidding my wife farewell, I said : "Let
me jive you this warning ; whatever you read about me, don't
worry. If there is any scandal, pay no attention to it, for that
is the way they fight in Denver."

And when I reached my destination, I had cause to be glad
of my forethought. John Reed, who had just come up from
the coal-country, told me of the vile slanders which had been
invented and circulated concerning the women of the coal-
fields who had been active in defense of their cause. The
scandal-mongers had not even spared a poor, half-crazed
Italian woman, whose three babies had been burned to death
in the holocaust at Ludlow! Louis Tikas, a young Greek
idealist, a graduate of the University of Athens, who had been
trying to uplift his people and had been foully murdered by
corporation thugs, they blackguarded as a "brothel hanger-on"
before his corpse was under ground 1 John Reed himself they
had got involved with a charming young widow in Denver ; he
had met her twice at dinner-parties! (In passing, to show
you how far Colorado had progressed toward civil war, I
might mention that this lady, upon learning what had been
done to the" strikers, sent to the East and purchased two
machine-guns and hid them in her cellar, ready to be shipped
to the strike-field for use by the strikers in case the militia
attempted to return.)

Every Socialist and magazine-writer, even every writer for
conservative publications, was taken in hand upon his arrival
in Denver, and fitted out with a scandal. So far as I know,
the only one who escaped was Harvey O'Higgins — and this
because he took the precaution to bring his wife along. I had
not brought my wife; also I was a "divorced man," and an

176

The Scandal-Bureau 177

easy victim. Thfere was a young Jewish girl, a probation-
officer in Judge Lindsey's court, whom I was so indiscreet as
to treat to a sandwich in a dairy lunch-room; that was suffi-
cient for the scandal-bureau, which had to hustle in these
crowded days. I recollect a funny scene in the home of James
Randolph Walker, where several of these "affinities" learned
for the first time to whom they had been assigned. We had a
merry time over it ; but meanwhile, at the meetings of the Law
and Order League, and other places where the ladies of "good
society" in Denver gathered to abuse the strikers, all these
scandals were solemnly ' taken for granted, and quoted as
evidence of the depravity of "foreign agitators" and the radi-
cals who abetted them !

For myself, let me explain that during my three weeks in
Denver I kept two stenographers busy all day ; I wrote a score
of articles, I sent hundreds of telegrams and letters — ^working
under terrific pressure, hardly taking time to eat. My wife
was back in New York, risking her frail health in the midst
of public uproar, and with reason to fear that she might be
assaulted by thugs at any moment. Every thought I had to
spare was for her, all my loyalty was for her; yet "good
society" in Denver was imagining me involved in a dirty
intrigue! In several intrigues — such a Bluebeard I am! I
had been in the city perhaps a week, when a young lady came
to me and spoke as follows :

"Mr. Sinclair, I represent the 'Denver Post.' We have a
rumor concerning you about which I wish to ask you."
. "What is it?"

"We understand that you are about to move from your
hotel."

"I have no such intention. Who told you that ?"

"Well, I hope you will not take offense ; I will tell you the
report, just as it was given to me."

"Very well, go ahead."

I am sorry I cannot remember the exact words of the rig-
marole ; it was five years ago, and I have had more important
things to remember. Suffice it to say that it was a new scan-
dal-T— not the Jewish probation-officer; I had uttered a mys-
terious and portentous sentence, expressive of my guilty fear ;
if my wife were to learn why I had left the hotel, "it would
be all over." I looked the young lady from the "Denver Post"
in the eye and answered: "Standing in the Pennsylvania

12

178 The Brass Check

station, bidding my wife farewell, I said to her : 'Let me give
you one warning; whatever you may read about me, don't
worry. If there is any scandal, pay no attention to it, for that
is the way they fight in Denver.' " And so the young lady
from the "Denver Post" went away, and did not publish that
awful "rumor."

There are people who live upright and straightforward
lives, and concerning whom no breath of scandal is ever
whispered; such people are apt to think that all anyone has
to do to avoid scandal is to lead upright and straightforward
lives as they do. They see some man who keeps dubious com-
pany, and is given to "smart" conversation ; concerning such a
man an evil report is readily believed ; and they conclude that
if any man is a victim of scandal, he must be such a man as
that. But how if a scandal were deliberately started, concern-
ing a person who had done nothing whatever to deserve it?
My wife tells of a woman in her home town who would
destroy the reputation of a young girl by the lifting of an
eyebrow, the gesture of a fan in a ballroom. She would do
this, sometimes from pure malice, sometimes from jealousy
for her daughter. You can understand that among sophisti-
cated people such practices might become a subtle art; and
how if it were to occur to great "interests," threatened in their
power, to hire such arts? Let me assure you that this thing
is done all over the United States ; it is done all over the world,
where there is privilege defending itself against social protest. '

There was a certain labor leader in America, who was
■winning a great strike. It was sought to bribe him in vain,
and filially a woman was sent after him, a woman experienced
in seduction, and she lured this man into a hotel room, and at
one o'clock in the morning the door was broken down, and the
labor leader was confronted with a newspaper story, ready to
be put on the press in a few minutes. This man had a wife
and children, and had to choose between them and the strike ;
he called off the strike, and the union went to pieces. This
anecdote was told to me, not by a Socialist, not by a labor
agitator, but by a well-known United States official, a promi-
nent Catholic.

I cite this to show the lengths to which Big Business will
go in order to have its way. In San Francisco they raised a
million dollar fund, and with the help of their newspapers set
10 work deliberately to railroad five perfectly innocent labor-

The Scandal-Buheau 179

men to the gallows. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, the great
Woolen Trust planted dynamite in the homes of strike-
breakers, and with the help of thSr newspapers sought to
fasten this crime upon the union; only by an accident were
these conspirators exposed, and all but the rich one brought
to justice. Do you think that "interests" which would under-
take such elaborate plots would stop at inventing and circu-
lating scandal about their enemies ?

Most certainly they did this in Denver. I was assured by
Judge Lindsey, and by James Randolph Walker, at that time
chairman of Denver's reform organization, that the corpora-
tions of that city had a regular bureau for such work. The
head of it was a woman doctor, provided with a large subsidy,
numerous agents, and a regular card catalogue of her victims.
When someone was to be ruined, she would invent a story
which fitted as far as possible with the victim's character and
habits ; and then some scheme would be devised to enable the
newspapers to print the story without danger of libel suits.

There are a hundred ways by which this can be done;
watch "Town Topics" in New York, or "Town Talk" and the
"Wasp" in San Francisco, and you will see. The victim will
be asked if there is dissension between him and his wife;
when he denies it, there will be an item to the effect that he
denies it — ^the item being so worded as to cause people to smile
knowingly. I know a radical whose wife nearly died of appen-
dicitis; while she was still bed-ridden, she was taken to a
sanatorium by her mother and her family physician, a man old
enough to be her grandfather. The day after she left, her
husband was called upon to "deny" a report that his wife "had
eloped with a Jew."

Or perhaps maybe a report will be brought to the man
that somebody else has made charges against him; he is
naturally indignant, and when he is asked if he will bring a
libel suit, he answers that he will think about it; so the newsr
paper has a story that the man is thinking about bringing a
libel suit. Qr someone will be hired to slander him to his
face, and when he knocks the slanderer down, the newspaper
will have a story of a public disturbance, so worded as to put
the victim in the wrong, and at the same time to make known
the slander.

In extreme cases they will go as far as they did with Judge
Lindsey — ^hiring perjured affidavits, and getting up a fake

180 The Bbass Check

reform organization to give them authority. Lindsey, you
understand, has made his life-work the founding of a children's
court, which shall work by love and not by terror. Love of
children — ah, yes, all scandal-bureaus know what that means!
So they had a collection of affidavits accusing Lindsey of
sodomy. They brought the charges while he was in the East ;
a reporter went to the Denver hotel where his young bride was
staying, and when she refused to see the reporter, or to hear
the charges against her husband, the reporter stood in the
hallway and shouted the charges to her through the transom,
and, then went away and wrote up an interview !

Or perhaps the Scandal-Bureau will maintain for its foul
purposes a special publication which is libel-proof ; one of those
"fly-by-night" sheets, whose editor-in-charge is an office-boy,
and whose worldly possessions are a telephone address and
. three pieces of furniture. This was a part of their scheme in
Denver. The publication was called — oh, most delicious allure-
ment! — "Polly Pry"! I don't know if it is still pubHshed, but
I saw copies of it during the coal-strike, and it was full of the
crudest libels concerning everybody who stood for the strikers.

I remember one full-page story about "Mother Jones," a
white-haired old woman of eighty-two years, who was being
held in jail without warrant or charge for several months,
because she persisted in coming back to the strike-field every
time she was deported. And what do you think they said
about "Mother Jones"? In her early years she had been the
keeper of a house of prostitution ! They went into the most
elaborate detail about it; they gave the names of people who
knew about it, they gave the address of the house — and then
they had their "kepP' congressman, a man by the name of
Kindel, to read this number of "Polly Pry" into the "Congres-
sional Record" ! So, of course, it was "privileged" ; all the
"kept" newspapers all over the state of Colorado and elsewhere
might quote the story without danger of punishment! They
might quote it, not from "Polly Pry," but from the "Congres-
sional Record" ! 1

I took the trouble to ask "Mother Jones" about this story.
It appears that in those early days she was a sewing woman ;
she earned a precarious living, and felt herself justified in
working for anyone who would pay her. She did some sew-
ing for a girl of the streets, and this girl died of tuberculosis,
and the Catholic church refused her a burial service, and

The Scandal-Bureau 181

"Mother Jones" wrote to a newspaper to protest against this
action — her first appearance in public life, her first utterance
of radicalism. And this had been remembered all these years,
it was brought up against her in one labor struggle after
another ; only they made her the ''madame" of the house where
the poor girl of the streets had lived !

We who sympathize with the cause of labor grow used to
such things, and do not care for ourselves. What hurts us is
this — ^that in a time of crisis, when the need of labor is so
great, our influence with the public is destroyed by these
slanderers. The average law-abiding and credulous citizen has
no remotest idea of the existence of such machinery for
influencing his mind. He takes the truth of these stories for
granted, and concludes that a cause which is represented by
such advocates can have ho claim upon him. While I was in
Denver, the "Law and Order League" held several meetings
in the parlors of the great hotels. I offered to address these
ladies, and I know that if I had been permitted to do so, I
could have opened the eyes of some of them. But the league
voted against it, and I have no doubt that this vote was because
of the Scandal Bureau and its work. Instead of hearing me,
the league heard a clergyman, the Rev. Pingree, who declared
that if he could have his way he would blow up all the
strikers' homes with dynamite 1 After that I always referred
to this organization as the "Law and Murder League."

But the crowning achievement of the Scandal-Bureau was
still to come. In the effort to induce President Wilson to
intervene in the strike, I had evolved what I thought was a
wonderful idea — ^that Judge Lindsey and his wife should
escort three of the miners' wives to Washington to tell their
story to the President. It took days and nights of diplomacy,
for Lindsey had an election campaign ahead of him, and his
wife was in delicate health; but the emergency was extreme,
and at last "our little Ben," as the children called h^m, made
up his mind to the sacrifice. The party set out, and spoke at
large meetings in Chicago and New York, and interviewed the
President in Washington, and afforded the Associated Press
another opportunity to display its complete subservience to
the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

And meantime, in Denver, the newspapers were pouring
out an incessant stream of invective upon Lindsey. The
Scandal-Bureau revived the old yarn, that he was "the insane

182 The Bbass Check

son of insane parents." (I knew his mother, an excellent old
lady, as sane as I am.) On every stage of this journey Lind-
sey was accompanied by his young wife, to whom he had been
married only a few months ; nevertheless, it was plainly stated
in the Colorado papers, and generally believed by Denver
"society," that the three strikers' wives constituted part of a
harem. If only you could have seen them — ^three pathetic,
bedraggled poor women, two of them in deep mourning ! And
■when Mrs. Lindsey, owing to the strain of the journey, suf-
fered a miscarriage, and had to be carried from the train to a
hospital in Chicago, several Colorado newspapers reported
that this was owing to mistreatment by her husband! At a
meeting of the Denver Real Estate Exchange, it was proposed
to appoint a committee to "spit on Lindsey's shoes" when he
returned; and this was the kind of news that was thought
worth forwarding out of Denver!

I write to Judge Lindsey, so that you may have these in-
credible incidents upon his authority, not upon mine. He
confirms every statement I have made. He, tells of a woman
detective, employed by the Scandal-Bureau —

The Lewis woman circulated the story that my wife came out of
a house of prostitution,, and that her mother was a "madame"; and
the corporations paid the woman for it. There is no doubt about this,
and it can be proved.

Judge Lindsey goes on to narrate' the extraordinary cir-
cumstances under which these proofs became available. One
of the members of the State legislature, a man named How-
land, was caught receiving a bribe in the legislature. He had
introduced a "strike bill" against the Tobacco Trust, and a
messenger-boy had handed him an envelope of money, said
to be from an agent of the Tobacco Trust. In order to save
this man Howland, the head of the Scandal-Bureau, Dr. Mary
Elizabeth Bates, came forward and testified before the legis-
lative committee that she had sent this money to Howland in
order to pay detectives to "get Lindsey." Says Lindsey in
his letter to me :

Mind you, she testified to her part in the infamy, and was backed
up by some of our rich citizens, feeling that she was quite safe from
prosecution — as she was. But Howland was found guilty of perjury
m this case, having swprn that the money came for an entirely different
purpose. Because of the general belief of the legislators that the
whole thing was part of a frame-up against me, and the fear that it

The Scandal-Bueeau 183

would lead to the truth being told about the fight ag:ainst me, they
came to a compromise in the case against Howland, which was merely,
to expel him from the legislature for perjury. He never was tried
for perjury or conspiracy to ruin me and my court work, as was un-
doubtedly his plan.

And how stands the matter today? Let Lindsey tell it in
his own words :

During the war I was absolutely outlawed from every opportunity
to be of any patriotic service here by the privilege and special interest
crowd who control all patriotism, especially in the food and other
administrations. When I returned from France I was permitted to
speak for the Liberty Loan, but the chairman of the meeting told me
that one of Boss Evans' old tools had threatened to "read him out
of the Republican party" for daring to let me take part in that patriotic
celebration. Fourteen bills for the protection of women and children
were killed in the last legislature through the open statement of cer-
tain members of the legislature who were tools of the Interests that:
"If Lindsey has anything to do with it,, swat it." All this you will
understand is my heritage of hate because of the part my wife and I
took in that strike, and against big crooks generally when they have
time and again tried to rob our city. Since "The Beast and the Jungle"
stories, and my part in the Colorado coal-strike, it has been almost
impossible for me to speak before such assemblies as High Schools,
Woman's Clubs, Mothers' Congresses and the like. As one woman
said to me frankly. "Mrs. So-and-so's husband is a big contributor
to our club, and if we permitted you to appear on the program she
would be highly indignant and withdraw her support." I am sure you
will understand just exactly what the influence is, and how insidiously
it works.

As I read the page-proofs of this book, the great coal
strike comes, and the miners in the Southern Colorado field
are out again, and Federal troops are guarding the mines. But
this time it is not necessary for the Scandal Bureau and the
Associated Press to muzzle the strikers and their sympathiz-
ers. This time the job has been done by the Federal court
injunction!

CHAPTER XXX
THE CONCRETE WALL

I returned to New York, and at a meeting in Berkeley Hall
I told the story of conditions in Colorado. I did not get myself
arrested, however, so the New York newspapers printed only
a few words of what I said, and the Associated Press sent out
nothing. It was again the concrete wall, impenetrable, insur-
mountable: on one side I, with my facts about the outrages
upon the miners; and on the other side the public — as far out
of reach as if it had been in the moon.

The greatest atrocity of the strike was the fact, previously
set forth, that the state militia in the coal-fields had been
recruited from strike-breakers and Baldwin-Felts gunmen.
The facts had been refused, even to the state legislature ; until
finally the legislature appointed a committee to wait upon the
militia general and not leave his office until they got the roster
of the guard. So it was disclosed that in Company A of the
state guard there had been one hundred and twenty-two mem-
bers, and all but three of them coal-company employes, receiv-
ing the pay of coal-companies while they wore the uniform
and carried the flag of the state !

It was an incredible prostitution of government ; and what
did the newspapers do with the story? What did the Asso-
ciated Press do with it? I was unable to find the story in a
single newspaper, outside of Denver. I brought the full-page
story clipped from the "Rocky Mountain News" to New York
with me, and tried the big New York dailies, and could not
get one of them to publish it.

The "Chicago Tribune" had published in full a letter of
mine to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., setting forth these facts in
detail. Also the "Tribune" had published a very fair and just
editorial, headed : "All ;he Truth," from which I quote :

Facts ^re charged by Mr. Sinclair — and others, it must be said — •
which, if true, are a disgrace to the men responsible and to the com-
munity in which they existed. To ascertain the truth and to deal with

the situation are duties which must be performed Let us have the

facts about this terrible industrial tragedy, and all the facts. Let us
know the guilty and all the guilty.

184

The Concrete Wall 185

Three days later the "Chicago Tribune" took up my definite
charges concerning the guard. It said:

If, as he asserts, the Adjutant General's report shows any such
abuse of the guard, the situation calls for prompt rebuke and effective

action, if such action is possible under our laws We suggest the

National Guard take cognizance of the above allegations of Sinclair,
and if they are substantiated by the Adjutant General of Colorado
that the guard publicly orotest against the abuse.

Five days after that the "Chicago Tribune" published a
letter from P. A. Wieting of Denver, as follows :

Referring to your editorial "Abusing the Guard," in your issue
of June 5. If Upton Sinclair said that the official records of Adjutant
General Chase showed that an overwhelming majority of the Colorado
militia were mine guards and other employes of the coal companies, he
deliberately, lied. Mr. Chase's records showed nothing of the sort,
and could not ; for the statement is absolutely false and absurd. The
National Guard of Colorado is made up like in other states, of young
business and professional men, students, farmer boys and the like, and
includes the sons of many of our best families.

It is surprising that a paper of the standing of the "Tribune"'
should accept offhand such a preposterous charge against a great state
made by a professional muckraker. If you still entertain the slightest
belief in Sinclair's foolish charge, any banker, any reputable business
man, any college president in Colorado will tell you, as I do, that the
man who made the statement quoted lied and knew that he lied.

Now here was a direct issue of fact. If P. A. Wietmg
were a real person, living in Denver, Colorado, and if he read
a morning newspaper, he must have read the "Rocky Mountain
News," because that was the only morning newspaper pub-
lished in Denver. And on the entire front page of the "Rocky
Mountain News" had been published the roster of Company A
of the Colorado state militia, as given to the press by a com-
mittee of the state legislature, also a report of this committee
of the legislature, giving all the facts as to these members of
Company A, the capacity in which one hundred and nineteen
out of one hundred and twenty-two of them were employed by
the coal-operators or the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, and
the wages they were paid by these concerns. The evidence was
as complete and as authoritative as it was possible for evidence
to be ; and therefore, when P. A. Wieting wrote this letter to
the "Chicago Tribune," deliberately accusing me of deliberate
lying, he was deliberately lying himself.

I thought, of course, that the "Tribune," having taken a
brave stand and called for the truth, rea-'J.y wanted the truth,

186 The Beass Check

and would push the controversy to the end. Therefore I sent
to the "Tribune" by registered mail a copy of the "Rocky
Mountain News," containing the facts, and I looked, to see
this full-page report transferred to a page of the "Chicago
Tribune." Or I looked to have the "Tribune" have some
representative in Denver look up the facts, as it might so easily
have done. Instead of that, I saw not one line about the mat-
ter. What strings had been pulled in the "Tribune" office, I
don't happen to know. All I know is that I wrote several
times, protesting, and that no attention was paid to my letters.
Now, while I am preparing this book, I write to the "Tribune,"
lest by any chance the "Tribune" published somethingjin some
edition which I missed, and which my clipping bureau missed ;
but the "Tribune" leaves my letter unanswered !

Also I write to Denver to find out about P. A. Wieting —
if he is a real person. I find that he is assistant cashier of the
Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., Mr. Rockefeller's concern which
broke the strike!

All this time, you must understand, the "kept" writers on
the other side of the concrete wall were having their will with
the public. Arthur Brisbane, for example, whose editorial
against the strikers was submitted to Mr. Rockefeller by Mr.
Rockefeller's press agent as a proof of the press agent's skUl !
And Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora — ^you will find a special
chapter in this book devoted to the "Fra," and in it you may
read how he sought to sell out the Colorado striker^. And the
Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, a clerical gentleman whom we have
seen spurning George D. Herron in public, and apologizing in
tears before his congregation because his greed for money had
led him into a mess of lawsuits. This clerical gentleman
preached a sermon, in which he referred to our Broadway
"pickets" as "a lot of silly people," and incidentally told some
score of lies about the strikers. Somebody, name unknown,
was circulating this sermon in expensive pamphlet form by the
hundreds of thousands of copies; so George Creel wrote to
Hillis — ^but in vain. If you are near a library, look up Creel's
"Open Letter" in "Harper's Weekly," May 39, 1915, and see
how many lies a greedy preacher can pack into one sermon.
I also wrote to the reverend gentleman, and succeeded in
getting a reply from him. I quote my final letter, which covers
the case, I think :

The Concbete Wall 18T

Rev. Newell Dwight Hilus,

Brooklyn, New York.
My Dear Sir:

I have your letter and note that you are going West to Colorado,
and that if you can find any_ errors in your sermon you will correct
them. I would say that definite and specific errors. are pointed out in
George Creel's letters; errors that you would not have to go to
Colorado to find out about. They are proven in the sworn testimony
given before the Congressional Investigation Committee and before the
hearings of the Commission on Industrial Relations. While you can,
of course, not recollect who gave you this or that detail of information,
you must certainly know from what source you took the definite false
statements of figures and facts to which Mr. Creel calls your attention.
Moreover, the most important questions in both Mr. Creel's letter and
mine, you have entirely ignored. I wish to ask you, before you go
West, will you answer the following specific questions?

Who is circulating and paying for the expensive pamphlet form
of your sermon?

Second, did this party obtain your permission to circulate it in
this form?

Third, did you receive any payment for permitting this circulation ?

Fourth, if, after investigation of Mr. Creel's points in Colorado
you find that you were wrong and he was right, will you compel the
party who is circulating this pamphlet to give to your corrections the
same amount of circulation?

I have, of course no right to insist that you should answer any of
these questions. I will merely say that by failing to answer them, and
answer them promptly and explicitly, you will leave your name open
to exceedingly grave suspicions.

This letter remained unanswered; yet such utter lack of
concern about his good name has not injured the pastor of
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, with the great organs of capitalist
opinion! Only recently "McClure's Magazine" has selected
him for its prize anti-Bolshevik liar. Please make a mental
note of him, for reference when we come to the anti-Bolshevik
liars and their lies.

It was still our hope that President Wilson could be per-
suaded to interfere in the strike and force the Rockefellers to
some compromise. It being the way of public officials to move
only in response to public clamor, we were driven to keep on
butting our heads against the concrete wall. Our "mourning
picket" demonstration had gathered about us a group of young
radicals, who could not endure to see flie effort die down and
the strangling of the strike completed. Every day one would
come to us with some new idea. One group wished to go up to
Rockefeller's home on Madison Avenue, and walk up and
down in front of it. We objected to this, because we were

188 The Beass Check

not attacking Mr. Rockefeller persotially, we were attacking
his business policy, and his office seemed the proper place.
Nevertheless, one boy ventured up on Madison Avenue, and
was promptly arrested and sent to jail for sixty days.
' There was another group which wished to visit Tarrytown,
where young Rockefeller had retired to the seclusion of his
country home, with a high iron fence all around it, and iron
gates, and a score or two of armed guards patrolling day and
night. This group tried to hold a street meeting in the village
of Tarrytown, and were arrested. So I was driven into a
campaign on behalf of free speech. I have told in Chapter
XII of my experience with the "Tarrytown News"; I have
now to tell of my experience with the "New York Herald."
It is one of the few of my newspaper adventures from the
contemplation of which I derive satisfaction.

I had several sessions with the board of trustees of the
village of Tarrytown. They were courteous, and permitted
me to argue the issue of free speech — which I did courteously.
I brought to them a charming letter from Georg Brandes,
then a visitor in New York. They held a public session,
addressed by Leonard Abbott, Theodore Schroeder, and
myself, and in the course of my talk I pointed out that the
result of repression of free speech was viblence. In England,
where the radicals were allowed to gather in Hyde Park and
say what they chose, crimes of political violence were prac-
tically unknown. On the other hand, in America, where it
was customary for the police to arrest radicals and club and
jail them, such crimes were common. Only the other day the
newspapers had told of the assassination of the chief of police
of Seattle, where the I. W. W. had been prevented from
speaking.

There were a dozen newspaper reporters present at this
hearing, and accounts of it appeared in the New York papers
next morning. The "Herald" stated that I had threatened the
trustees of Tarrytown with violence in case they refused my
request. I quote from the "Herald's" narrative:

Suddenly Frank R. Pierson, president of the village, leaped to his
feet and said :

"We shall not be intimidated by threats. We will hear no more
of this kind of argument. For one, I was willing to listen to what
these people had to say and to hear them fairly and honestly, but when
they come here with threats of death, of assassination and of mob rule,
I will not'\ear them further."

The Conckete Waix 189

_ Now, concerning this account there is- only one thing to be
said : it was absolute fiction. I have never met a more agree-
able gentleman than Mr. Pierson, president of the Tarrytown
village board; he voted my way on every occasion, and from
first to last we never exchanged a word that was not cordial.
On reading this account I at once went to see him, and ascer-
tained that both he and the other trustees considered the report
to be false and inexcusable. I then sent a letter to the
"Herald" informing them that they had libeled me, and threat-
ening them with a suit. They sent a reporter to see me, and
I explained to this reporter the basis of my complaint, and next
morning the "Herald" published my letter of complaint,
together with an article reiterating its statement, and quoting
three of the trustees as supporting its statement. I quote the
"Herald" reporter's words :

I saw Frank R. Pierson, president of the village, and asked his
opinion of the correctness of the account published in the "Herald."
Mr. Pierson carefully read the article and then said:

"Mr. Sinclair certainly made the remarks attributed to him in the
'Herald,' if I heard aright, and I did jump up and declare that we
should not be intimidated by threats. Mr. Sinclair may not have
intended to make a threat, but the inference was plain. The 'Herald'
did not misquote either Mr. Sinclair or me."

And concerning the above interview also there is only one
thing to be said; it was absolute fiction. I went to see Mr.
Pierson again, and he assured me that he had given no such
interview, and would appear in court and testify accordingly.
Another of the trustees wrote me that the "Herald" interview
with him was a "fake," and so I put the matter into the hands
of my attorneys, and a libel-suit was filed against the "New
York Herald." If dragged for a year or two, and I came to
California and dismissed the matter from my mind. When the
time came for the suit to come to trial, I was unwilling to take
the trip to New York, and asked my lawyers to have the matter
dropped. You may imagine my consternation when I received
a letter from them,'telling me that they had been negotiating
with the attorneys for the "Herald," and had succeeded in
settling the case upon the basis of a payment of twenty-five
hundred dollars damages! Never, if I live to be as old as
Methuselah, shall I spend money that will bring me more
satisfaction than that twenty-five hundred dollars!

Throughout these Tarrytown adventures, which lasted sev-

190 The Beass Check

eral weeks, each newspaper had one reporter who followed the
story day by day, and two or three of these men became
friendly to me. Isaac Russell, reporter for the "Times,"
invited me to lunch in a restaurant in Tarrytown, with a couple
of other men. I explained that I was ill and not eating any-
thing, but would sit and chat with them. As they were finish-
ing, there came in the reporter for the "World," who, as it
happened, had been drunk during most of the time. Next
morning there appeared in the "World" a particularly nasty
account of the day's events, in which it was described how I
had come to Tarrytown with four women in my train, had
had lunch with several reporters, and had permitted them to
pay the bill. I took the trouble to go down to the office of
the "World" and see Mr. Frank Cobb, managing editor;
explaining to him that I had come alone to Tarrytown, had
spoken to no woman in Tarrytown, and had eaten no lunch in
Tarrytown. Mr. Cobb admitted that I had a grievance, and
by way of recompense allowed me to dictate a column inter-
view about the meaning of the free speech fight in Tarrytown ;
incidentally he took the drunken reporter oflf the assignment.
From the other reporters I got the "inside" story of what had
happened, and it throws an amusing light upon newspaper
ethics. The drunken reporter had lost out in the contest with
me, not because he had been drunk, nor because he had lied
about a radical, but because he had implied in his article that
a reporter was a social inferior ! Was not a reporter privileged
to invite an author to lunch, and to pay for the lunch if he
saw fit?

CHAPTER XXXI
MAKING BOMB-MAKERS

It had been agreed by the trustees of Tarrytown that while
we might not tell about the Ludlow massacre at a street-meet-
ing, we might tell about it at a meeting in a theatre or hall. I
set out to find a theatre or hall, but there was no theatre or
hall that could 'be rented for that purpose. I then went up on
the heights, where the Rockefellers live, and appealed to the
sense of fair play of Mr. Rockefeller's neighbors. This is
the Pocantico hills country, a line of magnificent estates and
palatial homes, of which you see pictures in the "Sunday sup-
plements." You might have thought it poor territory for
radical propaganda; nevertheless, I was able to persuade one
of the residents, Mrs. Charles J. Gould, to allow the use of
her open-air theatre for a meeting in defense of free speech.
Imagine, if you can, the excitement of the New York news-
papers, when they learned that there was to be an I. W. W.
meeting — so they called it — in an open-air theatre on a mil-
lionaire estate almost next door to the Rockefellers !

We held the meeting, attended by some three hundred
people of the town, rich and poor, including a number of
laborers from young Mr. Rockefeller's estate. John W.
Brown, organizer of the United Mine-workers, told the story
of the strike, and we moved a resolution that it was the sense
of the meeting that Mr. Rockefeller's treatment of his strikers
had been such that we called upon the President of the United
States to confiscate his mines. We discussed that resolution
for a couple of hours, and we carried it unanimously! But
alas, it happened that Adolf Wolff, an Anarchist sculptor and
poet, got up and delivered a tirade, abusing me for having
pleaded for free speech with the trustees of Tarrytown. "We
shouldn't plead, we should take!" declared Comrade Wolff.
A lady from the South got up and sang negro-songs to pacify
the tumultuous meeting, and so the newspapers could make a
joke of the whole affair — which they did.

In their last public session with us, the trustees of the

191

192 The Beass Check

village had admitted that there could be no interference with
a meeting held upon the strip of property through which ran
the city aqueduct — this property being under State control.
So now the radicals whose friends were in jail wanted to hold
a meeting on this aqueduct property. They asked me to come,
but I happened to be ill. Leonard Abbott went with them, also
a boy named Arthur Caron, whose story I must briefly tell.
Caron had been one of the finest lads who had joined our
Broadway demonstrations. He was a French-Canadian, whose
wife and baby had starved to death during the Lawrence
strike. He had come to New York and taken part in the
unemployed demonstration of the previous winter, and the
police had arrested him and beaten him in his cell, breaking
his nose and one ear-drum. He was a non-resistant, he told us,
and had been one of the most useful in helping us to keep our
demonstration peaceable. Now he went, at my suggestion, to
avail himself of the public assurance given by the Tarrytown
trustees, that a meeting on the aqueduct would not be inter-
fered with.

But, as it happened, the "Tarrytown News" was carrying
on a furious, war against the village trustees, because of their
halfway-decent treatment of the "agitators"; the "News"
wanted us all exterminated, and it called on the "law-abiding"
citizens of the village to assemble at the aqueduct and stop that
meeting. So the speakers were met by a mob of rich men and
chauffeurs, who tooted horns and howled at them, threw rotten
vegetables and sand and stones into their faces, filling their
eyes and mouth with filth and streaming blood. Running
through the village toward the railroad-station, the little group
was ridden down by mounted members of the aqueduct police-
force, who pursued them even on board the train, and clubbed
them over the heads when they sought refuge in the seats.
These incidents were described to me by several indignant
newspaper reporters, including my friend Isaac Russell, of the
"Times." But the "Times" cut out from Russell's story the
incident of the clubbing on the train.

Here was another call for protest; but by this time the
Sinclair family had reached the point of exhaustion. My wife
had been a semi-invalid at the beginning of the affair, and was
now near to nervous breakdown. We had spent every dollar
we owned, and a great many that we did not own ; so we were
forced to retire, and let the Tarrytown rowdies and their

Making Bomb-Makees 193

rowdy newspapers have their way. We remained in New
York for a couple of weeks to straighten our affairs ; and on
the very day we had planned to leave for the country, the
telephone rang, and my wife answered, and a voice said : "This
is the 100th St. Police Station. Do you know a man named
Arthur Caron?"

Yes, my wife knew Arthur Caron. "What about him ?" she
asked, and the voice answered: "We found your name in a
notebook in his pocket. Will you come to the station and
identify his body ?"

There had been, it appeared, an explosion in a tenement-
house on Third Avenue. At first the police thought it was a
gas-explosion, but soon the truth became known ; Arthur Caron
and two or three of his friends had been making bombs with
the intention of blowing up the Rockefellers, There had been
a prerhature explosion, which had blown out several stories
of the tenement, and killed the three lads.

It was interesting to observe the conduct of the New York
newspapers during this affair. It made, of course, a tre-
mendous excitement. Bombs are news ; they are heard all the
way around the world. But the outrages which have caused
the bombs are not news, and no one ever refers to them. No
one makes clear that these outrages will continue to cause
bombs, so long as the human soul remains what it is.

Now the New York newspapers knew perfectly well that
our Broadway demonstration, our "Free Silence League," as
they had dubbed it, had been a peaceable demonstration. They
knew that at the opening meeting, at which the plan was dis-
cussed, I had declared that I desired the co-operation only of
those who would pledge their word to me personally that they
would offer no resistance, no matter what was done to them ;
that they would not even speak a word, nor argue with any-
one, they would do nothing but walk up and down. At our
first meeting Frederick Sumner Boyd, an I. W. W. leader,
repudiated my ideas, and called upon the meeting to organize
itself to raise money and send arms to the coal-strikers. I
replied that if any wished to organize such a group, it was his
right, but I had called this meeting for the purpose of organiz-
ing one kind of demonstration, and I thought that those who
wished to organize some other kind of demonstration should
Utilize one of the other rooms of the Liberal Club ; whereupon

18

194 The Bbass Check

Boyd and about half the audience withdrew. All this had been
fully reported in the New York papers, and was known to
everyone.

Also it was known to the Rockefellers that at the head-
quarters of our Colorado Committee I personally obtained the
pledge of every man and woman, before I allowed them to
join us, that they would conform to the rule laid down. I
say this was known to the Rockefellers, because they had spies
among us; I knew perfectly well who those spies were, and
allowed one of them to think he was my friend. From first to
last I had nothing to hide, and for that reason I had nothing
to fear, and this was as well known to the newspapers as it
was to the police who were probing the explosion. Except
for the first telephone call, which had come from a desk-ser-
geant who knew nothing about the matter whatever, the police
did not trouble us, nor even question us ; yet day by day, while
that sensation was before the public, the whole effort of the
New York newspapers was concentrated upon making it appear
that Upton Sinclair was in some way connected with the bomb-
plot. Day after day there would be circumstantial accounts
of how the police and the coroner and other ofificials were
preparing to summon my wife and myself, and to subject us
to a "rigid examination" concerning Arthur Caron and the
other victims of the explosion. We would call up the police
and the coroner and other officials, and inform them that we
were perfectly willing to be questioned, but that we knew noth-
ing but what we had told the public; to which the police and
the coroner and the other officials would reply : "We have no
wish to question you; that's just newspaper talk." All
officials understand what "newspaper talk" means; but the
public doesn't understand, and so what the public carried away
from this affair was the general impression that my wife and
I were dangerous characters. We were too cunning to get
caught, of course; but we incited obscure and half -educated
young people to make bombs and set them off, and then we
washed our hands of them and left them to their fate.

There is one final story which ought to be told in connec-
tion with these "mourning pickets." You may recall that I
had appealed against the decision of Police-magistrate Sims,
to the effect that one whose conduct had been "that of a perfect
gentleman" might properly be found guilty of "using threaten-
ing, abusive and insulting behavior." I had told the story of

Making Bomb-Makers 195

this court-decision at a public meeting in the State capitol in
Denver, and again at a dinner of the Progressive Party
workers in Chicago — saying : "I don't know whom the magis-
trate supposed I had threatened, abused and insulted — ^unless
perhaps it were John D. Rockefeller, Junior !" The audience
had laughed appreciatively; they thought that was a funny
joke ; I, too, thought it was a funny joke. But now — can you
believe it? — ^Justice Grain of the Court of General Sessions
handed down his august decision, which had cost me several
hundred dollars in lawyer's fees and court costs to obtain ; and
this Daniel come to judgment upheld the decision of Police-
magistrate Sims, and gave his reasons therefor — and lo, his
reasons were my funny joke! Seventeen thousand, five hun-
dred dollars per year the people of New York State pay to
Justice Grain of the Court of General Sessions, for handing
down such august decisions ; and forever and ever, so long as
capitalist civilization endures, that particular august decision
will be printed on expensive paper, and bound in expensive
sheepskin, and treasured in the libraries of learned jurists.
Such a wonder of a decision deserves to be read, as well as
preserved in law-books; so I will quote it here, as follows:

No citizen has a right to rebuke another citizen by subjecting him
to ridicule or insult.

The defendant intended by his conduct in the presence of others
to rebuke the conduct of Mr. Rockefeller. His action was in the
language of the statute, abusive or insulting; abusive because it is
derogatory to the one whose conduct is referred to, and the insult lies
in part in the subject matter of the rebuke and in part in the publicity
of the infliction.

Now let me put to you this problem. The "New York
Herald" had published a cartoon, in which I was portrayed as
a hideous monster with a filthy muck-rake ; and now suppose
that I had appealed to Justice Grain of the Court of General
Sessions, complaining that James Gordon Bennett had "re-
buked a citizen" by "subjecting him to ridicule or insult" — do
you think that Justice Grain would have sent Bennett to jail ?
And do you think that the newspapers would have printed
the decision with solemn and respectful comment, praising it
as a proper rebuke to a disturber of public order?

I close the story of this long Colorado struggle with a
benediction sent to me all the way across the continent: the
"Los Angeles Times," July 9th, 1914:

196 The Beass Check

It develops that Upton Sinclair only served two of his three days'
sentence, after all. He was on a hunger strike, and after he had gone
unfed for two days, his wife came and paid the rest of his fine and
forced him out of jail. Wait till they have been married a little longer,
and perhaps she will let him serve three years if he wants to do it.

I enquire among friends and learn that the general im-
pression is that I declared a "hunger-strike," and couldn't stick
it out, and let my wife come to my rescue. Again the news-
papers ! The truth is that I was as comfortable as any man
ought to ask to be in jail; I had a cell to myself, and it was
clean, and near a window, and I was allowed to have my mail,
and all the books I wanted, and visitors at reasonable hours.
But I wanted to appeal from that stupid decision ; and in order
to appeal, the lawyers explained, I must have something to
appeal for. I couldn't appeal for the time I spent in jail, for
no court could restore that to me. I had to pay some money —
one dollar at the least ; and having paid this, I had to come
out, whether I would or no. So the newspapers had a chance
to report that Upton Sinclair, who had written a book telling
how he had fasted for ten or twelve days, had been unable to
stick out a three-day "hunger-strike" !

CHAPTER XXXII
THE ROOF-GARDEN OF THE WORLD

After these strenuous adventures I retired to private life
to recuperate. I edited "The Cry for Justice," and then, finding
that I was still haunted by the Colorado situation, I wrote
"King Coal." Meantime I had moved to Southern California,
seeking an open-air life. I have been here four years, and
alas, I have had a new set of experiences with newspapers.
As preliminary to them, there must be given a brief account
of this "Roof-garden of the World."

It exists because of climate. There are, of course, ranch-
men who raise fruits and vegetables, and there are servants
and chauffeurs and house-builders and plumbers, but the main
industry of Southern California is climate. Everybody is
consuming climate, and in addition to this, nearly everybody
is trying to sell climate to "come-ons" from the East. The
country has been settled by retired elderly people, whose health
has broken down, and who have come here to live on their
incomes. They have no organic connection with one another ;
each is an individual, desiring to live his own little life, and
to be protected in his own little privileges. The community is
thus a. parasite upon the great industrial centres of other parts
of America. It is smug and self-satisfied, making the sacred-
ness of property the first and last article of its creed. It has
a vast number of churches of innumerable sects, and takes
their aged dogmas with deadly seriousness; its social life is
display, its intellectual life is "boosting," and its politics are
run by Chambers of Commerce and Real Estate Exchanges.

There are, of course, a great number of ladies in Southern
California with nothing to do. They have culture clubs, which
pay celebrities to come and entertain them, and next to marry-
ing a millionairess, this is the easiest way to get your living in
Sojithern California. They will pay you as much as a hundred
dollars for 4 lecture, and such an opportunity is naturally not
to be sneezed at by a strike-agitator in debt. I had been living
quietly for a year or so, working on "King Coal," when I was
invited to meet at luncheon one of the ofificials of the ultra-

197

198 The Brass Check

exclusive Friday Blorning Club of Los Angeles. I was duly
inspected and adjudged presentable, and received an invitation
to set forth my intellectual wares before the club assemblage.

Now, this was an important opportunity, as my friends
pointed out. There are many such clubs in Los Angeles, and
scores of others in the leisure-class towns round about. This
first lecture was a test, and if I "made good," I would receive
more invitations, and might be able to live quietly and do my
writing. The ladies who came to hear Upton Sinclair would>
of course, come expecting to be shocked. If I didn't shock
them at all, my lecture would be a failure ; I must be judicious,
and shock them just exactly enough, so that they would come
for more shocks. I am fortunate in having a wife who under-
stands the psychology of ladies, and who undertook to groom
me for this new role of leisure-class lecturer.

In the first place, there was the question of clothes. "You
haven't had a new suit in four or five years," said my wife.

"How about the one I bought in England?"

"That heavy woolen suit? If you wore that on a summer
day, the perspiration would stream down your face 1"

"Well," I ventured, "mightn't they think it proper for a
Socialist to wear old clothes? Mightn't I be pathetic "

Said M. C. S. "They don't want anybody around who is
not well dressed. It's depressing. You must have a new suit."

"But — we just haven't the money to spare."

"You can get a Palm Beach suit for ten dollars."

"Isn't that rather festive? I never wore anything like it."

"Idiot ! Papa wears them all the time."

Now "papa," you must understand, is — well, what "papa"
does is the standard. So it was arranged that I should go into
Los Angeles an hour or two earlier in the morning, and pro-
vide myself with a Palm Beach suit and pair of white shoes
for two dollars. "They will be made of paper," said my wife,
"but you won't have far to walk, and they'll do for other
lectures."

M. C. S. does not go with me on these adventures, having
not been well since the Colorado excitement. She stays at
home and mends socks and writes sonnets, while I administer
shocks to the leisure-class ladiis. Her last injunction was a
hair-cut. "The day of long-haired geniuses is past. Promise
me you'll have your hair cut."

I promise, and I get the Palm Beach suit and the shoes.

The Roof-Gaeden of the World 199

and then look for a barber. It is ten or eleven months before
America's entry into the war, but the "preparedness" enthu-
siasts are having some kind of celebration in Los Angeles,
and the streets are a mass of red and white bunting ; I walk a
long distance, and find half a dozen places with red and white
ribbons wound about poles, but they are not barber-shops. At
last, however, I find one, just in the nick of time, and at ten
o'clock sharp I present myself, all freshly groomed, to the,
charmiijg ladies of the club, and am escorted onto the platform.

My theme is "The Voice of the Ages," and I bring with
me a copy of "The Cry for Justice," and read passages from
eminent ancient authors, startling my hearers by the revelation
that Plato and Euripides and Isaiah and Jesus and Confucius
and Dante and Martin Luther and George Washington were
all members of the I. W. W. of their time. I read them Isaiah
on "Ladies of Fashion" — all save one obscene sentence, which
could not be uttered before modern ladies. I give them just
exactly the proper number of thrills, mixed with the proper
number of smiles, and they bombard me with questions for an
hour, and we have a most enjoyable time.

But one tragedy befalls. I am quoting Frederick the Great
on the subject of Militarism, and am moved to mention the
fact that Los Angeles is now in a military mood. "I promised
my wife I would get a hair-cut before I came here, but I
almost missed it, because there were so many red and white
decorations on the streets that I couldn't find a barber-shop."
The instant the words were out of my mouth, I realized that
I had, as the boys say, "spilled the beans." Driving home with
a friend who is a member of the club, she told me what a
success the lecture had been, and I replied : "Ah, no, you are
mistaken ! I ruined everything !"

"How ?" asked my friend.

"Didn't you hear me confuse the American flag with a
barber-pole?" '-■^ i»-',

"Nonsense !" said my friend. "They all laughed."

"May be so," said I. "But wait until you see the papers
tomorrow morning !" '*

And sure enough, it was as I said! Next morning the
"Los Angeles Times" published an account of the lecture, in
which I was portrayed as a dandified creature who had
appeared before the ladies decked in tennis flannels. Having
since met Alma Whitaker, the woman who wrote this account.

200 The Bbass Check

I dare stake my life that she knows perfectly well the dif-
ference between a Palm Beach suit and tennis flannels; but
she wanted to make me hateful, and that was such a little lie!
She went on to tell about my lecture, in which I had sneered
at Jesus, and compared the American flag to a barber-pole!
My audience had been highly indignant, according to her
account, and one eminent lady had left the room in disgust.
And so next morning there was an editorial in the "Times,"
of which I will quote about half. You will be struck by its
peculiar style, and may be interested to know that it was
written by General Otis himself, being a fair sample of the
vitriol which every day for thirty years he poured out upon
everything enlightened in California:

UPTON SINCLAIR'S RAVINGS

Many people believe that the prattlings of an anarchistic Upton
Sinclair before a woman's club are unworthy of serious attention; but
the fact that the hall of the Friday Morning Club was filled to over-
flowing at his programme, and that the great majority of them sat
throughout the entire lecture, would seem to prove that such illogical
ravings have at least some power to impress. Some few women have
been found courageous enough to voice their indignation that the club
rostrum should be used for such ungodly purposes.

It is depressing to find a great number of intelligent women, well
able to think for themselves, lending time and ear to a piffling collec-
tion of ihore-or-less brilliant quotations upholding anarchy, destruction,
lawlessness, revolution, from the lips of an effeminate young man
with a fatuous smile, a weak chin and a sloping forehead, talking in
a false treble, and accusing them of leading selfish, self-indulgent
lives. It would be laughable if it were not a little disconcerting. These
women, who are doing such earnest work for their city, who, indeed,
rank among the best intellect of the city, who have deeds rather than
words to their credit — it seems incredible that they should be prepared
to lend encouragement to such unintelligent, witless, anarchistic out-
pourings.

While slyly veiling his false doctrines as quotations from "intelli-
gent ancient peasants," and the prophet Isaiah, and. the Greek classics,
Upton Sinclair nevertheless makes no secret of his sympathy with
dynamiters and murderers, and considers it an example of exquisite
wit to speak of Jesus Christ with patronizing irreverence. His sense
of humor also demanded that he belittle the flag of the United States,
and, after pretending to confuse it with a barber's pole scoff at the
great national wave of emotion for the country's righteous defense
and honor.

An assembly of men of the same standing as the women of the
Friday Morning Club could never be induced to listen to such insults
to their creed and their country without violent protest. Never before
an audience of red-blooded men could Upton Sinclair have voiced his
weak, pernicious, vicious doctrines. His naive, fatuous smile alone

The Roof-Gaeden of the Wobld 201

would have aroused their ire before he opened his vainglorious mouth.
Let the fact remain that this slim, beflanneled example of per-
verted masculinity could and did get several hundred women to listen
to him.

Now, as a matter of fact, it happened that I had given a
far more radical lecture at the monthly dinner of the Uni-
versity Club, where three hundred men of Los Angeles had
heard me with every evidence of cordial interest. The secre-
tary of the club had told me that it was the only occasion he
could remember when none of the diners had withdrawn to
play chess until after the speaking was finished. But I had,
of course, no way to make known this fact to the readers of
the "Times," nor even the true sentiments of the ladies of the
Friday Morning Club. It happened that my friend George
Sterling spoke at the club the following week, and I went with
him and was asked to speak at the luncheon. I referred play-
fully to what the "Times" had said about me, and was
astonished at the ovation I received. The women rose from
their seats to let me know that they appreciated the insult to
them involved in the "Times" editorial. It is the same thing
that I have noted everywhere, whenever I refer to the subject
of our newspapers. ' The American people thoroughly despise
and hate their newspapers ; yet they seem to have no idea what
to do about it, and take it for granted that they must go on
reading falsehoods for the balance of their days !

CHAPTER XXXIII
A FOUNTAIN OF POISON

I have lived in Southern California four years, and it is
literally a fact that I have yet to meet a single person who
does not despise and hate his "Times." This paper, founded
by Harrison Gray Otis, one of the most corrupt and most
violent old men that ever appeared in American public life,
has continued for thirty years to rave at every conceivable
social reform, with complete disregard for truth, and with
abusiveness which seems almost insane. To one who under-
stands our present economic condition, the volcano of social
hate which is smouldering under the surface of our society,
it would seem better to turn loose a hundred thousand mad
dogs in the streets of Los Angeles, than to send out a htmdred
thousand copies of the "Times" every day.

You cannot live in Southern California and stand for any
sort of liberal ideas without encountering the wrath of this
paper. And when you have once done this, it pursues you
with personal vindictiveness ; no occasion is too small for it to
lay hold of, nor does it ever forget you, no matter how many
years may pass. My friend Rob Wagner writes me an amusing
story about the feud between Otis and the city of Santa
Barbara, a millionaire colony about a hundred miles from
Los Angeles: ,

When the big fleet came around here some years ago I was
director-generaling a very snappy flower festival at Santa Barbara, and
as the "Times" played up all the bar-room brawls the sailors got
into and belittled my pretty show, I got hold of the local correspondent
and says: "Mac, why are you crabbing the show and featuring the
rough stuff?" "Well the truth is, Bob, my pay depends upon the kind
of stuff I send. A rotten story is good for columns, against a few
paragraphs of the birds and the flowers. You know the General has
towns as well as individuals on his index, and Santa Barbara is one
of them. The General once owned the Santa Barbara 'Press,' and
with his usual cave-man methods got in bad with the villagers, and
they bumped him socially so hard that he finally left m great heat and
swore vengeance, which he practices to this day. This has been going
on for years."

Now the old "General" is gone, but his "index" still stands.

303

A Fountain of Poison 203

Tl;ie song should read : "Old Otis' body lies a-moulderin' in
the grave, but his soul goes cursing on !" It goes on cursing,
not merely movements of social reform and those who advo-
cate them ; it goes on cursing Santa Barbara ! Soon after we
came to Pasadena there was an earthquake shock, sufificiently
severe to cause us to run out of our house. You understand,
of course, that earthquakes are damaging to real-estate values ;
therefore there was no report of an earthquake in any Los
Angeles paper next day — save that the "Times" reported an
earthquake in Santa Barbara! A year or two later this hap-
pened again — and again it was an earthquake in Santa Barbara.
Also, Rob Wagner tells me of his own amusing experience
with the "Times." I quote :

During the Harriman campaign I deserted my class, kicked in and
had Socialist meetings at my studio, and even enjoyed the degradation
of offering hospice to Ben Reitman and Emma Goldman the night
after they were run out of San Diego. So the General paid me the
amazing compliment of putting me on his index, and gave orders that
my name should not appear thereafter in his art columns. Anthony
Anderson proved it to me by slipping in a harmless little notice of a
portrait exhibit I was holding, which got the blue pencil. So you see
that even an artist who might help the town in its very ingrowing
aestheticism got the General's axe if the General didn't like his politics I

It happens, curiously enough, that I have met socially half
a dozen members of the "Times" .staff. They are cynical
worldlings, doing a work which they despise, and doing it
because they believe that life is a matter of "dog eat dog."
I met the lady. Alma Whitaker, who had written the account
of my Friday Morning Club lecture. She had enjoyed the
lecture, she said, but afterwards had gone to the managing
editor and inquired how I was to be handled ; she took it for
granted that I would understand this, and would regard it
tolerantly. I explained to her the embarrassments of an
author in relation to an unpaid grocer's bill. As a result of
what she had written about me, I had not been invited by any
other woman's club in Southern California!

Also I met one of the high editors of the "Times," an
important personage whom they feature. Talking about the
question of journalistic integrity, he said: "Sinclair, it has
been so long since I have written anything that I believed that
I don't think I would know the sensation."

My answer was : "I have been writing on public questions

204 The Brass Check

for twenty years, and I can say that I have never written a
single word that I did not believe."

I have had much to say about the Associated Press in the
course of this book. I need say only one thing about it in
Southern California — ^that its headquarters are in the editorial
rooms of the "Los Angeles Times." A good part of what
goes on the Associated Press wire is first strained through the
"Times" sieve; and so I can inform Mr. Fabian Franklin,
formerly of the "New York Evening Post" and now of the
"Review," that his sacred divinity, the Associated Press, has
established here in Southern California a system which makes
it impossible that any news favorable to the radical cause
should get onto the Associated Press wires, and that every-
thing dealing with the radical movement in Southern Cali-
fornia which goes over the Associated Press wires should be
not merely false, but violently and maliciously false. For
example a prominent criminal lawyer in Los Angeles is blown
up by a bomb, and the report goes out to the country that the
police authorities believe that this was the work of "radicals."
But next day the police authorities state officially that they
have no such belief; and a couple of days later the crime is
proven to have had a purely personal motive.

I have myself tested out, not once but several score of
times, the system of the concrete wall and the news channel
as it works here in Los Angeles. For example, when I read
that Russia had a Socialist premier by the name of Kerensky,
and that he did not know what to do with the Tsar and his
family, I wrote to him a letter suggesting "An Island of-
Kings" — one of the Catalina Islands, off Los Angeles, as a
place where the dethroned sovereigns of Europe might be
interned, under the guardianship of the United States govern-
ment. This, you perceive, was a "boost" to Southern Cali-
fornia; it conveyed to the outside world the information that
Southern California has a wonderful out-door climate, and
beautiful islands with wild goats running over them, and deep
sea fishing off the shores. I offered this story to the "Los
Angeles Times," and they grabbed it, and it went out at once
over the Associated Press wires.

Then, again, America went into the war, and I found
myself compelled to revise the conclusions of a life-time, and
to give my support to a war. I debated the issue at a gather-
ing of. Socialists; and here again was news which world-

A Fountain of Poison 205

capitalism desired to have circulated, here was a well-known
Socialist turning to the capitalist side! The "Times" printed
the story and the "A. P." sent it out. In order to make the
record clear, I quote from the "Times" :

UPTON SINCLAIR FAVORS WAR

Has a Complete Reversal of Former Ideas.

Publicly Announces Views in Crown City.

Holds World's Democracy Is in Danger.

Pasadena, Feb. 19. — ^After preaching vehemently against war for
twenty years, Upton Sinclair, the Socialist writer, has joined hands with
Mars. The propagandist's exit from the ranks of the peace-at-any-
price Socialists was made unexpectedly and dramatically yesterday
afternoon at a mass meeting at the Pasadena High School. Sinclair's
announcement of his change of heart came after an address by Prof.
I. W. Howeth of the University of California on the history and causes
of war. In the open forum, which followed the addresses, Sinclair
was the storm center in a discussion in which his stand was criticized
by the Socialists and other peace advocates and applauded by others in
favor of supporting the stand taken by President Wilson.

And then followed long extracts from my speech. As sent
out by the Associated Press it was so garbled that I will ask
the reader to read four paragraphs of the "Times" account.
My reasons for asking this will appear later:

"My one interest in the world is democratic self-government. I
have fought for this at every sacrifice of personal advantage for twenty
years. I consider that all modern governments are evil, based upon
injustice, but I am bound to recognize that there are degrees in this
evil. The test is whether the government leaves the people free to
agitate against it. This the British government' to a great extent has
done; so has the French; the German has not.

"For us to permit the Prussian ruling class tp beat England to her
knees by the methods of general piracy that have been adopted is to
put democracy in peril of its life, and to make certain an age of
military preparation in the United States, Canada and Australia.

"If we go into the war the thing to do is to decide in advance the
terms, and let these be such as to unite all the democratic forces of
the world behind us. We do not want Germany beaten to her knees
and territories given to her enemies. We do not want to underwrite
the program of Russia in Constantinople. We want to remove these
points of contention from the arena.

"We want to heal up the ancient wounds. We want to teach all
rulers and all peoples that civilization will permit no one to gain terri-
tory by war. We want to inter-nationalize the Dardanelles, Alsace-
Lorraine, Belgium, Poland, and to say that we, all the world, will fight
to put down any state which at any time attempts to invade them."

Again, on the first anniversary of the Russian revolution.

206 The Bkass Check

before a mass meeting of the Russian Revolutionary Society of
Los Angeles, I defended the idea that Russia must stand by
the Allies until the Kaiser was overthrown. The "Times"
gave two columns to this story, with big headlines. I quote
the opening paragraphs, with apologies for the "Times' "
atrocious English:

TOSSES WRENCH INTO RED RUSSIAN MACHINE
Invited Speaker Gives the Bolshevik Adherents Talk on Patriotism.

Upton Sinclair threw a monkey-wrench of facts of American
manufacture into a mass meeting of Socialists and near-Socialists at
the Labor Temple yesterday, that after cheers and tears for the
Bolsheviki, their red riot of revolution, pledges of support of Lenine
and his associates, and a notable evasion of facts for the sake of
indulgence in rhetorical idealism, wound up by adopting a resolution
for home rule in Ireland.

"So long as the United States government is behind the small
nations and for justice in the world, every Socialist and every revolu-
tionist should be behind the American government," Sinclair told more
than five hundred' men and women, ranging in their sympathies from
pale pacifism and yellow disloyalty up, amid hisses and cheers.

Mr. Sinclair's speech, while not unexpected by the committee in
charge of the arrangements, was not in keeping with the spirit of the
meeting and threw a damp blanket on the more radical element that
had gathered to pass resolutions and cheer the social revolution and
the economic disintegration of the Russian Empire.

The Sinclair speech, which bristled with loyal and patriotic utter-
ances, was sandwiched between an address by Michael Bey, secretary
to Prof. Lomonosoff of the Russian Mission, and the address of Paul
Jordan Smith.

Such was my stand during the war, as set forth in the
news columns of the "Times." Biit when the Kaiser was over-
thrown, and I saw America's war for democracy being turned
into a war to put down the first proletarian government in
history, I went back into the radical camp — ^and what happened
then? What happened was that instantly the news channels
became a concrete wall ! If you know an)rthing about my going
back into the radical camp, and the reasons therefor, you
know it from the radical press, and not from the capitalist
press. Since the day when I announced the change, the Asso-
ciated Press has sent out not one word about my point of view
or my utterances ; while the "Los Angeles Times" goes farther
yet — ^the "Times" deliberately blinks the fact that I once
"tossed a wrench into the red Russian machine," and embarks
on a campaign to make the public believe that I was disloyal
during the war ! You may find this beyond believing ; but I

A Fountain of Poison 207

shall prove it to you. And so far successful has it been that
recently a high school principal in Los Angeles, addressing
the pupils of her school, referred to me as a "notorious dis-
loyalist and traitor" !

There are, of course, libel laws in California, so the
"Times" dares not come out fairly and squarely with the state-
ment that I was disloyal during the war. What it does is to
scan my every word and action, and report them with subtly
chosen phrases which expose me to suspicion, without making
definite charges. Surely you must admit that such calculated .
and systematic treachery on the part of an enormously rich
and powerful newspaper is of public importance. You will
expect me to prove my charge. Very well, here are two cases.
Case one :

While I stood by the war, I didn't stand by the Espionage
act, and when some of my friends were arrested as pacifists,
and stood in danger of ten or twenty years in jail, I went to
the authorities and interceded, and succeeded in having the
cases settled on the basis of a plea of guilty and the payment
of fines. The "Times" knew what I was doing, and was foam-
ing at the mouth about it, so I was told by several of its staff ;
but it dared not say anything, because I had won both the
Federal judge and the prosecuting authorities to my way of
thinking.

The deputy United States attorney, Mr. Palmer, happened
to be a Southerner, a type of man I understand, and I got to
know him during these negotiations. Later on I went to see
him and said: "Mr. Palmer, I am writing a story, 'Jiinmie
Higgins,' which I want to publish serially in my magazine.
It is a story of a Socialist in war-time, and its purpose is to
win the Socialists to the idea of supporting the war. But I
am in this dilemma. If I am going to show a man converted
from opposition to the war, I first have to show haw he felt
when he was opposing it ; I have to make him a real character,
I have to make his arguments real arguments — which is a
difficult thing to do in war-time. I would not want anybody
to misunderstand my purpose and point of view ; so I wonder
if you would read the manuscript, and tell me if there is any-
thing in it that might be open to misunderstanding."

Mr. Palmer's answer was that he was forbidden to give
official opinions on anything before publication, but he would
be very glad to give me a personal, unofficial opinion. I

208 The Bbass Check

answered that I would regard this as a favor, and Mr. Palmer
read the manuscript. No doubt he spoke about it to others,
and the "Times" must have heard of the matter. Some months
later appeared the following paragraph on the editorial page
of the "Times" :

Upton Sinclair has stuck his fingers in the Tom Mooney mess.
Sinclair has dropped his pen that for some time has been engaged in
preparing the manuscript of a book whose loyalty had to be passed
on by the United States District-Attorney, and is therefore in a position
to sympathize with those who might run afoul of the law.

Now, note the subtle treachery of this phrasing. The
loyalty of my manuscript "had to" be passed on. Practically
everybody who read that paragraph would understand from it
that the government had taken some action in the matter, had
placed me under compulsion to submit the manuscript. Nobody
would get the impression that the compulsion in the matter was
the compulsion of my own conscience and judgment, my wish
to make sure that my piece oi fiction was not open to mis-
understanding. Needless to say, the "Times" didn't mention
the fact that Mr. Palmer, having read the manuscript, wrote
cordially to assure me that there was no possibility of its
being misunderstood, and no need of any changes being made.

Case two — and still more significant :

It happened a year or more ago that I had to undergo an
operation for appendicitis. I requested the authorities at the
hospital not to give out news about this operation, because I
do not care to have purely personal matters exploited in the
papers. Thus it was a couple of weeks later, after I was out
of the hospital, before anything was known about my opera-
tion. A friend of mine called me on the phone to ask if I
would meet the Pasadena correspondent of the "Times,"
Robert Harwood, a decent young fellow who was trying to
learn to write. I said that I could not meet him at that time,
because "I had just come out of the hospital. My friend
explained these circumstances to Harwood, and Harwood sent
in a news item, which appeared next morning under the head-
line : "Anarchist Writer in Hospital."

Now, of course, the editors of the "Times" know perfectly
well that I am not an Anarchist. When they call me an
Anarchist, they do it merely to hurt me. When in war-time
they add the words : "Sinclair is still under surveillance,"
they mean, of course, that their readers shall derive the impres-

A Fountain op Poison 309

sion that the "Anarchist writer" is under surveillance by the
Department of Justice ; but if I should sue them for libpl, they
would plead that they meant I was under surveillance by a
surgeon !

A couple of weeks later I met young Harwood, and he
made an embarrassed apology for the item, explaining that he
had turned in to the "Times" a perfectly decent and straight
mention of my operation; the article had been rewritten in
the "Times" office, and the false headline put on by the manag-
ing editor of the paper. The manuscript of the copy that
Harwood had turned in had been read in advance by another
man who was present at the dinner, Ralph Bayes, formerly
city editor of the "Los Angeles Record," so there were two
witnesses to the facts.

To call a man an Anarchist at this time was to place him
in obloquy and in physical danger. Both Harwood and Bayes
were willing to testify to the facts, and I considered the possi-
bility of suing the "Times." I consulted a lawyer who knows
Los Angeles conditions intimately, and he said: "If you
expect to win this suit, you will have to be prepared to spend
many thousands of dollars investigating with detectives the
records and opinions of every prospective talesman. The
'Times' will do that — does it regularly in damage-suits. If you
don't do it, you will find yourself confronting a jury of Roman
Catholics and political crooks. In any case you will have a
jury which has no remotest idea of any difference between a
Socialist and an Anarchist, so the utmost you could possibly
get would be six cents."

A few days later young Harwood came to see me again.
He was anxious for me to bring suit, because he was sick of
his job. There was a strike of the Pacific Electric Railway
employes in Los Angeles. The city, you understand, is cele-
brated as an "open shop" town, and the "Times" is the
propaganda organ of the forces of repression.

"Mr. Sinclair," said Harwood, "I was at the car-barns here
in Pasadena all evening yesterday, and not a single car came
in. I wrote the facts in my story, and the 'Times' altered it,
reporting that the cars had run on schedule every ten minutes."

This is the regular practice of the "Times." All its
accounts of strikes are hate-stories, entirely disregarding the
facts ; all its accounts of political events and conditions, local,
state, or national, are class-propaganda. It will write its own

14

310 The Bbass CheCk

views of political conditions in Washington, and label it
"Exclusive Dispatch." It will take the dispatches which come
through the Associated Press, and put hate head-lines over
them — and sometimes it is so overpowered by hate that the
head-lines do not fit the context ! Thus I read a large head-
line, "STOKES WOMAN SENT TO PRISON"; and when
T read the dispatch under the head-line I discover, quite plainly
stated, that the "Stokes woman" is not sent to prison ! Again,
the Western Union Telegraph Company defies the United
States Government, refusing to accept the decision of the War
Labor Board. This is placed under the head-line: "TELE-
GRAPH COMPANY DEFIES UNION LABOR." A few
days later comes the news that the telegraphers' union is
threatening to strike because of the company's attitude. This
bears the title: "TELEGRAPHERS' UNION DEFIES
GOVERNMENT."

Needless to say, a newspaper which thus lies in the interest
of privilege is deeply and reverently religious. Every Monday
the "Times" prints a couple of pages of extracts from sermons,
and now and then its editorial page breaks into a spiritual
ecstasy of its own. I clipped one sample during the war — ^two
columns, twelve point leaded, with caps here and there : "The
One Tremendous Thought."

And what is this thought which overwhelms the "Times"?
The thought "that in this war the world is to be made safe, not
so much for democracy, as for men's souls." This war,
"sinister, cruel, bloody and bestial though it be," has placed
our soldier-boys under the care of religion. "Upon the
Protestant soldiers are the sleepless eyes of the Young Men's
Christian Association. Around our Catholic soldiers are the
faithful arms of the Knights of Columbus." Christianity had
been weakening before ' "the noisy school of the sciences" ;
but—

Now cometh the war! And behold, a professedly Christian world
that had been slipping away from belief in THE GREAT MIRACLE
OF THE AGES, now swings back to the old belief again. The Chris-
tian world is more truly Christian.

This then is the striking fact of the war.

And this is the one tremendous thought.

And from this overpowering sublimity, take a jump to the
news columns, in which the "Times" reports family scandals

A Fountain of Poison 211

in minute detail. Observe the chaste refinement of its head-
lines — ^this pious organ of sanctity!

RACY CHARGES MADE BY RICH

Says Wife Sneaked Paramour Into Room to Beat Him.
She Avers He Made Love to Widow in a Flat.
Sensational Accusations in Wealthy Man's Fight.

Also the "Times" has deep convictions on the subject of
Economics. I quote about half of one editorial :

MY LADY POVERTY

There is many A thing in this world much dreaded by us that we
have no need to dread. We often regard as a foe that which is really
a friend. And how many times we think of as being ugly that which
is indeed beautiful.

Perverted thus as we are in our natures, how unwelcome at the
door of life is the presence of poverty. Next to sickness and disease
we dread to be poor. And yet poverty is not a curse but a blessing.
_ Have you ever dwelt upon the sweet dignity and the beauty with
which St. Francis of Assisi clothed poverty? "My Lady Poverty" he
called it, giving to his rags and his hunger a personality, and taking
that personality into his heart.

And richly did his Lady Poverty reward Francis for his devotion
and his love. She cast out the dross from his nature, made life
unspeakably sweet and joyous for him, endeared him to the world
forever and immortalized him as few men have ever been immor-
talized

It must be that you will have thought often, too, of old blind
Homer who begged his way from door to door in the old times of
Greece. He was the master singer. He was the greatest, by far, of
all the poets that sung before him or that since have sung. Not
Sappho, nor Shakespeare, nor Tasso, nor Longfellow nor any one of
all that palm-crowned company was the peer of old blind Homer
begging his way from door to door.

Now, had not My Lady Poverty claimed Homer as a lover, had
he been rich, with a palace to live in and servants to wait upon him,
there would have been no Odyssey, no Iliad.

It was My Lady Poverty that lured Schiller to his garret and_ the
crust that was there; it was she who wove her fingers in Goldsmith's
hair when he wandered through Erin playing for pennies on his flute.

So, if some day, there shall be some among us who will wake to
find the Lady Poverty standing at the door, think not that fate will
then have served us ill. Fling back the creaking hinges and let her in.
Make room for her gracious presence in the wide guest chambers
of your heart.

This, you perceive, is exquisitely written and deeply felt.
In order to appreciate fully its passionate and consecrated sin-
cerity you need to be informed that the newspaper which

213 The Bbass Check

features it boasts a profit of something like a million dollars
a year ; this income being derived from the publication of the
filthiest patent medicine advertisements, of pages upon pages
of news about moving-picture rubbish, real estate speculations,
oil stocks, gold mines, every kind of swindling — all paid for.

I shall have much to say in later chapters about the "Times"
fortune and the way it was made. For the moment I give one
anecdote, to round out my picture .

My authority is a gentleman who a few years ago was
managing editor of the "Los Angeles Herald." The "Herald"
•was then a morning paper, a rival of the "Times," and was
controlled and practically owned by the Farmers' & Mer-
chants' National Bank of Los Angeles. The president of this
institution is the biggest banker on the coast, and was engaged,
with the connivance of the newspapers, in unloading upon the
city for two and a half million dollars a water company which
was practically worthless. It was found that the "Herald"
was not paying, and the banker decided to reduce the price
from five cents to two cents. But Otis of the "Times" got
wind of it, and notified the banker that if he lowered the price
of the "Herald," the "Times" would at once open up on the
water company swindle. "Oh, very well, General," replied the
banker. "If that's the way you feel about it, we'll forget it."
So the price of the "Herald" stayed up, and the paper lost
money, and finally Otis bought it for a song, ran it for a, while
in pretended rivalry to the "Times," and then sold it at a
profit, upon condition that it be made an evening paper, so
that it should not interfere with the "Times."

Reading this, you will not be surprised to learn that the
particular page upon which appeared the rhapsody to "My
Lady Poverty" bears the name of the particular "Times"
editor who told me : "It has been so long since I have written
anything that I believe, that I don't think I would know the
sensation !"

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE DAILY CAT-AND-DOG FIGHT

There are other newspapers pubHshed in this "Roof-garden
of the World." There is the Hearst newspaper, the "Los
Angeles Examiner," which publishes the editorials of Arthur
Brisbane, and follows, somewhat haltingly, the Hearst propa-
ganda for government ownership. But so far as its local policy
is concerned, it is entirely commercial, its fervors are for the
local industry of "boosting." It has an especially annoying
habit of disguising its advertisements so as to trap you into
reading them as news. You will be informed in head-lines
of a notable event in local history, and when you read, you
learn that Johnnie Jones, of 2249 S. Peanut Street, sold all
his chickens within two hours by using "Examiner Want Ads."
Again, you read a headline about an aviator just returned from
France, and what you learn about him is that Jones & Co.
have put out twenty thousand pictures of him in twenty
thousand boxes of "Frizzlies." "This confection is especially
delicious," says our naive "Examiner." And now, as I write,
some editor has an inspiration, and day after day I am con-
fronted with an illustrated article: "Aspirants to Shapely
Limbs Title. Who owns the most beautiful limbs on the
stage? Look them over."

Later on I shall tell of the "Examiner's" treatment of
various radicals. For the present I am dealing with personal
experiences, so I relate that in the spring of 1919 I was
invited to speak at a mass-meeting of the Jews of Los Angeles,
in protest against the pogroms in Poland. The other speakers
at this meeting expressed indignation at these pogroms; I
endeavored to explain them. The French bankers, who now
rule the continent of Europe, are engaged in setting up a sub-
stitute for the Russian Tsardom on the east of Germany ; and
this new Polish empire is using the Jews as a scapegoat, pre-
cisely as the Russian Tsardom did. Referring to President
Wilson, I said : "I have supported him through the war, and
I am not one of those who are denouncing him now. I think
he has made a pitiful failure in Europe, but I understand that

213

214 The Brass Check

failure ; it is due in part to the fact that the American people
do not realize what is going on in Europe, and do not make
clear their determination that American money shall not be
poured out in support of reaction and imperialism."

Such was the substance of my argument. Next day the
"Los Angeles Times" did not mention it; while the "Los
Angeles Examiner" reported it with outraged indignation,
under the scare head-line: "SINCLAIR ATTACKS WIL-
SON." In this form it was telegraphed all over the country.
The amusing feature of the story is that the "Examiner" itself
was at this time attacking Wilson most venomously — ^both on
its editorial page and in its Washington dispatches. But it
did not want my aid; it would not permit a Socialist to
"attack" the President of the United States !

In various cities there are various standards prevailing for
the conduct of newspapers in their rivalries with one another.
In New York the rule is that they never praise one another,
and only denounce one another in extreme cases. One thing
they absolutely never do is to mention one another's libel suits.
But here in Los Angeles the rivalry between the "Times" and
"Examiner" is a daily cat-and-dog fight. Not merely do they
spread each other's libel suits over the front page ; they charge
each other with numerous crimes, they call names and make
faces like two ill-mannered children. And they keep this up,
day after day, for weeks, so that it is impossible to get the
news of world-events in Southern California without having
their greeds and spites thrust upon you.

One day you read in the "Times" that the "Examiner" is
dressing up agents as soldiers, and circulating slanders against
the "Times." Next day there begins in the "Examiner" a
series of cartoons of Harry Andrews, managing editor of the
"Times," representing him in grotesque and disgusting posi-
tions. Next day you read in the "Times" that William Bayard
Hale, a former correspondent of the "Examiner," is charged
with having taken German money. Next day you read in the
"Examiner" that Harry Carr, assistant managing editor of the
"Times," has been shown to have had his travelling expenses
in Germany paid by the German government ; also that Willard
Huntington Wright, former literary editor of the "Times," is
accused of having taken German money. Next day you read
in the "Examiner" that the mayor of Los Angeles has been
indicted upon a charge of taking bribe-money from negro

The Daily Cat-and-Dog Fight 315

brothel-keepers, and that his chief confederate is Horace Karr,
former poHtical editor of the "Times." Next day you read
in the "Times" about this same Horace Karr — only he isn't a
former political editor of the "Times," he is a former reporter
for the "Examiner" ! This particular civic scandal is spread
over a page of both papers for a month, the "Examiner" play-
ing it up, the "Times" playing it down, both of them telling
patent falsehoods, and both of them continuing, day after day,
to describe Horace Karr as a former employe of the other !

One of the funniest instances of this rivalry occurred
recently upon the death of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, mother of
William Randolph Hearst, owner of the "Examiner." I made
a study of the "Examiner" and the "Times" next morning.
The "Examiner" gave three columns on the first page and five
columns on the third page to accounts of Mrs. Hearst and her
virtues. * There were two pictureSj one a picture of Mrs.
Hearst, occupying fifty-eight square inches, and the other a
picture of "the family of William Randolph Hearst visiting
their grandmother," this occupying forty square inches.

The "Times," of course, was not so much interested in
Mrs. Hearst. It gave her only the amount of space which it
would give to any California millionaire who died — ^that is, two
columns. The picture of Mrs. Hearst occupied only twenty-
four square inches, and the contrast with the picture in the
"Examiner" was most diverting. The picture in the "Exam-
iner" showed a magnificent and stately lady, some duchess by
Gainsborough. How the picture in the "Times" originated I
do not know, but it appeared as if the editor of the "Times"'
had said to his artist : "Find me a picture of the ugliest old
woman you have on file; or better yet, get me a picture of a
grim old man with a double chin, and draw me a woman's
bonnet on top of him, and a woman's dress over his shoulders,,
and label it 'Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst'."

Also there are three afternoon papers in Los Angeles — all
three sensational, all three commercial, with hardly the pre-
tense of a public policy. There was brought to my attention
the case of Raoul Palma, a young Mexican Socialist of an
especially fine type, who had earned the enmity of the Los
Angeles police by persisting in speaking on the Plaza. They
had brought against him a charge of murder, as perfect a
case of "frame-up" as I ever saw. I spent much time inves-
tigating the case, which failed for lack of evidence when

5J16 The Brass Check

brought before a jury. But the city editors and managing
editors of the Los Angeles newspapers, to whom I took the
evidence of this "frame-up," were not moved to any fervors.
I was able to get one or two small items published, but I was
not able to find a spark of human feeling, nor yet an ideal
of public welfare in the management of the journals upon
which I called. But suppose that I had gone to them with the
news that I was about to build a new million dollar hotel in
Los Angeles; or that I had purchased the Catalina Islands,
and was about to develop them for tourists; or that I was
about to start an airplane service up the coast !

Quite recently a great rubber concern has started a six
million dollar factory in Los Angeles; and such ecstasies as
seize our papers ! Columns and columns, day after day ; pic-
tures of the wondrous structure, and of the president of the
company — I "think I have had the features of this pudgy little
person thrust upon me not less than a dozen times ! And his
ideas — not merely about the rubber business and the commer-
cial prospects of Southern California, but about the League of
Nations, and the "Plumb plan" and labor unions and strikes
and Bolshevism !

On the other hand, there is a movement now under way to
organize the actors in the motion-picture industry in Southern
California; and how much space does this get from the Los
Angeles newspapers? On August 18, 1919, there was held
in the Hollywood Hotel a mass meeting of members of the
theatrical profession, to inform them concerning the meaning
of the actors' strike in New York, and to solicit donations for
the strikers. Not a line about this meeting in any Los Angeles
paper ! And not a line about the strike of the moving picture
workers which came soon afterwards !

Now, as I finish this book, the office of the "Dugout," a
returned soldiers' paper, is raided by the Federal authorities.
The editor, Sydney R. Flowers, served three years as a volun-
teer in the Canadian army, was twice wounded, and once
gassed. He joined a veterans' organization in Los Angeles,
but found it was being courted by the Merchants' and Manufac-
turers' Association as a strike-breaking agency ; so he rebelled,
and started a rival organization, and now the "M. and M."
plotters have persuaded the government to raid his rooms and
break up his propaganda. It happened that I myself was
present, and saw the raid, and half a dozen witnesses can

The D41LY Cat-and-Dog Fight 217

testify to the condition in which the offices were left. At my
instance the "Examiner" sent a photographer and took a
flashlight of the scene ; but then it suppressed the picture ! As
for the "Times," it quite solemnly informs its readers that the
war veterans wrecked their own offices, in order to have a
ground of complaint against the government ! It repeats this,
in circumstantial detail, two days in succession !

This is a somber tale I am telling, so let us not miss the
few latighs that belong. Some time ago I had a call from a
young lady reporter for the "Los Angeles Record." She was
a very young lady indeed — ^just out of school, I should say —
and she explained that Max Eastman had given an interview
on the subject of "free love," and would I please to give an
interview on the subject of "free love." In reply I explained
to this young lady that as a result of previous painful expe-
riences I had made an iron-clad rule on the subject of the
sex-question. I would not trust any newspaper reporter, not
even the most amiable, to interpret my views on that delicate
subject.

The young lady argued and pleaded. She did her very
charming best to get me to give her a hint of my opinion of
Max Eastman's opinion of "free love." But I have become a
wise bird — having had my wing-feathers shot out so mp.ny
times; I gave no hint, either of my own opinions or of my
opinions of Max Eastman's opinions.

Finally the young lady said: "Do you ever write on the
subject, Mr. Sinclair?"

I answered: "Sometimes I do. When I write, I choose
my own words and say what I mean, and then I am willing to
stand by it."

"Well," said the young lady, "will you write an article on
•free love' for the 'Record'?"

"Certainly I will," said I — "if the 'Record' will pay my
price."

"What is your price?"

"Ten cents a word."

The young lady looked troubled. "I don't know if the
'Record' could pay that," said she, "but this is my position — I
will explain frankly, and hope you won't mind. I've just
started to be a newspaper woman, and I'm very anxious to
make good. I don't have to earn my living, because my
parents have money. What I want to do is to have a career.

318 The Bbass Check

If I go back to the 'Record' and report that I failed to get an
interview, I won't keep this job. So won't you please write
an article for me, and let me pay for it at the rate of ten
cents a word ?"

You may share a smile over this queer situation. I pleaded
embarrassment, I argued with the young lady that I couldn't
possibly take her money. But she argued back, very charm-
ingly; she would be heart-broken if I did not consent. So at
last I said : "All right, I will write you an article. How many
words do you want ?"

The young lady meditated ; she figured for a while on the
back of her note-book ; and finally she said : "I think I'd like
fifty words, please."

Really, I explained, I couldn't express my views on such a
complicated subject in the limits of a night letter; so the
young lady raised her bid to a hundred words. In the end we
had to break off negotiations, and she went away disappointed.
I was told afterwards by friends that she published an article
in the "Record," describing this interview, and having an
amusing time with me; so presumably her job was saved. I
didn't see her article, for the "Record" is an evening paper,
and publishes half a dozen editions, no two alike, and the only
way you can find out what it says about you is to stand on
the street-corner for six or eight hours, and catch each fleeting
edition as it fleets.

I have come to the end of my own experiences. I read the
manuscript and the proofs, over and over, as I have to do,
and a guilty feeling haunts me. Will the radical movement
consider that I have forced upon it a ventilation of my own
egotisms, in the guise of a work on Journalism? I cannot be
sure ; but at least I can say this : Have patience, and read the
second part of the book, in which you will find little about
myself, and a great deal about other people, to whom you owe
your trust and affection; also a mass of facts about your
Journalism, without reference to anybody's personality.

PART II

THE EXPLANATION

CHAPTER XXXV
THE CAUSES OF THINGS

I studied Latin for five years in college, and from this
study brought away a dozen Latin verses. One of them is
from Virgil : "Happy he who has learned to know the causes
of things." The words have stayed in my mind, summing up
the purpose of my intellectual life : Not to rest content with
observing phenomena, but to know what they mean, how they
have come to be, how they may be guided and developed, or,
if evil, may be counteracted. I would not have taken the
trouble to write a book to say to the reader: I have been
persecuted for twenty years by prostitute Journalism. The
thing I am interested in saying is: The prostitution of
Journalism is due to such and such factors, and may be
remedied by such and such changes.

Here is one of the five continents of the world, perhaps
the richest of the five in natural resources. As far back as
history, anthropology, and even zoology can trace, these
natural resources have been the object of competitive struggle.
For the past four hundred years this struggle has been
ordained by the laws and sanctified by the religions of man.
"Each for himself," we say, and, "the devil take the hind-
most." "Dog eat dog," we say. "Do others or they will do
you," we say. "Business is business," we say. "Get the stuff,"
we say. "Money talks," we say. "The Almighty Dollar," we
say. So, by a thousand native witticisms, we Americans make
clear our attitude toward the natural resources of our
continent.

As a result of four centuries of this attitude, ordained by
law and sanctified by religion, it has come about that at this
beginning of the twentieth century the massed control of the
wealth of America lies in the hands of perhaps a score of
poVverful individuals. We in America speak of steel kings and
coal barons, of lords of wheat and lumber and oil and rail-
roads, and think perhaps that we are using metaphors ; but the
simple fact is that the men to whom we refer occupy in the

321

223 The Beass Check

world of industry precisely the same position and fill precisely
the same roles as were filled in the political world by King
Louis, who said, "I am the State."

This power of concentrated wealth which rules America
is known by many names. It is "Wall Street," it is "Big
Business," it is "the Trusts." It is the "System" of Lincoln
Steffens, the "Invisible Government" of Woodrow Wilson, the
"Empire of Business" of Andrew Carnegie, the "Plutocracy"
of the populists. It has been made the theme of so much
stump-oratory that in cultured circles it is considered good
form to speak of it in quotation marks, with a playful and
skeptical implication ; but the simple fact is that this power has
controlled American public life since the civil war, and is
greater at this hour than ever before in our history.

The one difference between the Empire of Business and the
Empire of Louis is that the former exists side by side with a
political democracy. To keep this political democracy subser-
vient to its ends, the industrial autocracy maintains and sub-
sidizes two rival political machines, and every now and then
stages an elaborate sham-battle, contributing millions of dollars
to the campaign funds of both sides, burning thousands of tons
of red fire, pouring out millions of reams of paper propaganda
and billions of words of speeches. The people take interest
in this sham-battle — but all sensible men understand that which-
ever way the contest is decided, business will continue to be
business, and money will continue to talk.

So we are in position to understand the facts presented in
this book. Journalism is one pf the de vires wherphy inrliT;-
tri al autocra cxJ teeps its control over po l itical democracy : it is
the" day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the
minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that
when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and
cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their
exploiters. Not hyperbolically and contemptuously, but literally
and with scientific precision, we define Journalism in America
as the business and practice of presenting the news of the day
in the interest of economic privilege.

A modern newspaper is an enormously expensive institu-
tion. The day is past when a country printer could set up a
hand-press and print news about the wedding of the village
blacksmith's daughter and the lawn-party of the Christian
Endeavor Society, and so make his way as a journalist. Now-

The Causes of Things 233

a-days people want the last hour's news from the battle-field
or the council-hall. If they do not get it in the local paper,
they get it in the "extras" from the big cities, which are thrown
off the fast express-trains. The franchise which entitles a
paper to this news from all over the world is very costly ; in
most cities and towns it is an iron-clad monopoly. You cannot
afford to pay for this service, and to print this news, unless
you have a large circulation, and for that you need complicated
and costly presses, a big building, a highly trained staff. Inci-
dentally you will find yourself running an advertising agency
and a public employment service ; you will find yourself giving
picnics for news-boys, investigating conditions in the county-
hospital, raising subscription funds for a monument to Our
Heroes in France. In other words, you will be an enormous
and complex institution, fighting day and night for the atten-
tion of the public, pitting your composite brain against other
composite brains in the struggle to draw in the pennies of
the populace.

Incidentally, of course, you are an institution running under
the capitalist system. You are employing hundreds, perhaps
thousands of men, women and children. You are paying them
under the iron law of wages, working them under the rule of
"the devil take the hindmost." You have foremen and man-
agers and directors, precisely as if you were a steel-mill or a
coal-mine ; also you have policemen and detectives, judges and
courts and jailers, soldiers with machine-guns and sailors with
battleships to protect you and your interests — ^precisely as does
the rest of the predatory system of which you are a part.

And, of course, you have the capitalist psychology; you
have it complete and vivid — ^you being the livest part of that
system. You know what is going on hour by hour; you are
more class-conscious, more alert tO' the meaning of events than
anyone else in the capitalist communityw You know what you
want from your wage-slaves, and you see that they "deliver
the goods." You know what you are furnishing to your adver-
tisers, and your terms are "net cash." You know where you
get your money, your "credit" ; so you know "Who's Who" in
America, you know whom to praise and whom to hate and fear.

There are perhaps a dozen newspapers in America which
have been built up by slow stages out of the pennies of work-
ingmen, and which exist to assert the rights of workingmen.
The ones I happen to know are the "New York Call," the

234 The Beass Check

"Jewish Daily Forwards," the "Milwaukee Leader," the
"Seattle Union Record," the "Butte Daily Bulletin." It should
be understood that in future discussions I except such news-
papers from what I say about American Journalism. This
reservation being made, I assert there is no daily newspaper
in America which does not represent and serve vested wealth,
and which has not for its ultimate aim the protection of
economic privilege.

I am trying in this book to state the exact facts. I do not
expect to please contemporary Journalism, but I expect to
produce a book which the student of the future wUl recognize
as just. So let me explain that I realize fully the differences
between newspapers. Some are dishonest, and some are
more dishonest; some are capitalistic, and some are more
capitalistic. But great as are the differences between them,
and clever as are the pretenses of some of them, there is no
one which does not serve vested wealth, which has not for its
ultimate aim the protection of economic privilege. The great
stream of capitalist prosperity may flow irregularly, it may
have eddies and counter-currents, stagnant places which
deceive you for, a while; but if you study this great stream
long enough, you find that it all moves in one direction, and
that everything upon its surface moves with it. A capitalist
newspaper may espouse this cause or that, it may make this
pretense or that, but sooner or later you realize that a capitalist
newspaper lives by the capitalist system, it fights for that
system, and in the nature of the case cannot do otherwise.
Some one has said that to talk of regulating capital is to talk
of moralizing a tiger ; I would say that to expect justice and
truth-telling of a capitalist newspaper is to expect asceticism
at a cannibal feast.

It would be instructive to take the leading newspapers of
America and classify them according to the nature of their
financial control, showing precisely how and where this control
shapes the policy of the paper. There will be certain imme-
diate financial interests — ^the great family which owns the
paper, the great bank which holds its bonds, the important
local trade which furnishes its advertising. Concerning these
people you observe that no impolite word is ever spoken, and
the debut parties given to the young ladies of these families
are reported in detail. On the other hand, if there are inter-

The Causes of Things 235

ests aggressively hostile to the great family, the great bank, the
important local trade, you observe that here the newspaper
becomes suddenly and unexpectedly altruistic. It will be in
favor of public ownership of the gas-works ; it will be in
favor of more rigid control of state banks ; whatever its policy
may be, you will, if you sit at the dinner-tables of the rich in
that city, have revealed to you the financial interests which lie
behind that unexpected altruism.

In the days of the ancient regime, nations went to war
because someone made a slighting remark about the king's
mistress ; and in our present Empire of Business you find
exactly the same thing happening. I know of a newspaper
which is still living upon the reputation it made by defending
the strikers in a great labor struggle. The paper had never
defended strikers before, it has never defended strikers since;
but on this occasion it happened that the president of the
corporation involved in the strike had remarked at a dinner-
party that the owner of the newspaper was living with an
opera-singer.

Some ten years ago I remember that the city of Chicago
was torn wide open by a teamsters' strike. Brickbats were
flying, mobs were swarming in the streets, militiamen were
stabbing people with bayonets. Some time afterwards there
was an investigation, and it transpired that a certain labor-
leader, Sam Parks by name, had been paid five or ten thousand
dollars by a great mail-order house to call a strike on a rival
mail-order house. And in precisely this way great newspapers
quarrel, and the public has no idea what it means. I have
heard a leading Hearst editor tell, quite simply and as a
matter of course, how Mr. Hearst would come into the office
at twelve o'clock at night and turn the batteries of the "New
York American" and "Journal" upon the business and politics
of August Belmont, because Mr. Belmont had slighted Mr.
Hearst, or Mr. Hearst's wife — I forget which — at a dinner-
party. One year you would see Mr. Hearst printing a cartoon
every day, showing "Charlie" Murphy, boss of Tammany Hall,
in convict's stripes ; next year Mr. Hearst would make a deal
with Tammany — and the other newspapers of New York
would be showing Mr. Hearst in convict's stripes 1

Or come to the other side of the continent, and consider
the "San Francisco Chronicle," owned by "Mike" de Young.

15

226 The Brass Check

Here is a picture of Mr. de Young, drawn by one of his wage-
slaves, a man who for many years has helped to run his
profit-machine :

He uses much perfume, and is extremely conceited. He is author
of the remark that no reporter is worth more than twenty dollars a
week, or ever will be. He is a secret laugh-producer because of his
inordinate love for the camera spotlight. Strangely enough, his like-
ness is seldom to be found in any paper except his own; the
"Chronicle's" camera men have standing instructions at public gather-
ings to pay as little attention to other men as possible and to concen-
trate on de Young. On his own paper everybody is Jones or Smith
except himself. He must always be referred to as Mr. de Young.
Owner of much valuable real estate near Golden Gate park, he made
a vigorous fight to have the Panama-Pacific Exposition located in the
park, hoping thereby to increase the value of his holdings. Defeated,
he turned his wrath on the exposition officials, and denounces them at
every opportunity. Mention of President C. C. Moore of the Exposi-
tion Company is forbidden in the columns of the "Chronicle."

There are differences, of course, in the moral character of
men. There are some men who do not take part in large-scale
real-estate intrigues, and some who do not live with opera-
singers; there are capitalists who pay their debts, and regard
their word of honor as their bond. And there have been news-
papers owned by such men, and conducted according to such
principles. You could not buy the editorial support of the
"Springfield Republican" or the "Baltimore Sun"; you could
not buy the advertising space of these papers for the cheaper
and more obvious kinds of fraud. But ask yourself this ques-
tion : Is there a newspaper in America which will print news
unfavorable to department-stores? If the girl-slaves of the
local department-store go on strike, will the newspaper main-
tain their right to picket? Will it even print the truth about
what they do and say?

Some years ago a one-time teacher of mine was killed by
falling down the elevator-shaft of a New York department-
store. I noted that my newspaper did not give the name of
the department-store. As a matter of curiosity, I bought all
the newspapers, and discovered that none of them gave the
name of the department-store. It was not absolutely essential,
of course; my one-time teacher was just as dead as if the
name of the store had been given. But suppose the accident
had taken place at the People's House, owned by the
Socialists — would all the newspapers of New York have with-
held the name of the place ?

The Causes of Things 337

I remember a still more extraordinary instance. One of
the Gimbel brothers was arrested in Philadelphia charged with
sodomy, and he cut his throat. Not a single newspaper in
Philadelphia gave this news! This was in the days before
Gimbel Brothers had a store in New York, therefore it
occurred to the "New York Evening Journal" that here was
an opportunity to build up circulation in a new field. Large
quantities of the paper were shipped to Philadelphia, and the
police of Philadelphia stopped the newsboys on the streets
and took away the papers; and the Philadelphia papers said
nothing about it!

And this department-store interest supervises not only
the news columns, but the editorial columns. Some years ago
one of the girl-slaves of a New York department-store com-
mitted suicide, leaving behind her a note to the effect that she
could not stand twenty cent dinners any longer. The "New
York World," which collects several thousand dollars every
day from department-stores, judged it necessary to deal with
this incident. "The World," you understand, is a "democratic"
paper, a "liberal" paper, an "independent" paper, a paper of
"the people." Said the "World" :

There are some people who make too large a demand upon fortune.
Fixing their eyes upon the standards of living flaunted by the rich,
they measure their requirements by their desires. Such persons are
easily affected by outside influences, and perhaps in this case the recent
discussions,^ more often ' silly than wise, concerning the relation of
wages to vice, may have made the girl more susceptible than usual to
the depressing effects of cheap dinners.

And do you think that is a solitary instance, the result of
a temporary editorial aberration? No, it is typical of the
capitalistic mind, which is so frugal that it extracts profit
even from the suicide of its victims. Some years ago an old
man committed suicide because his few shares of express-
stock lost their value. The "New York Times" was opposing
parcel-post, because the big express-companies were a promi-
nent part of the city's political and financial machine; the
"New York Times" presented this item of news as a suicide
caused by the parcel-post I

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE EMPIRE OF BUSINESS

Let the reader not misunderstand my thesis. I do not claim
that there exists in America one thoroughly organized and
completely conscious business government. What we have is
a number of groups, struggling for power; and sometimes
these groups fall out with one another, and make war upon
one another, and then we see a modern application of the
ancient adage, "When thieves fall out, honest men come into
their own." If, for example, you had studied the press of
New York City at the time of the life insurance exposures, you
would certainly have concluded that this press was serving
the public interest. As it happens, I followed that drama of
life insurance with the one man in America who had most to
do with it, the late James^B. Dill. Judge Dill ran a publicity
bureau in New York for several months, and handed out the
greater part of this scandal to the newspaper reporters. He
told me precisely how he was doing it, and precisely why he was
doing it, and I knew that this whole affair, which shook the
nation to its depths, was simply the Morgan and Ryan interests
taking away the control of life insurance money from irrespon-
sible people like "Jimmy" Hyde, and bringing it under the
control of people who were responsible— that is, responsible
to Morgan and Ryan. The whole campaign was conducted for
that purpose ; the newspapers of New York all understood that
it was conducted for that purpose, and when that purpose was
accomplished, the legislative investigations and the newspaper
clamor stopped almost over-night.

And all through this terrific uproar I noticed one curious
thing — ^there was never in any single newspaper or magazine
or speech dealing with the question the faintest hint of the
one intelligent solution of the problem — ^that is, government
insurance. I made .several efforts to get something on the
subject into the New York papers ; I gave interviews — I have
forgotten now to what papers, but I know that these interviews
never got by the blue pencil. It took the emergency of war-
time to force government insurance — and now the lobby of

228

The Empire of Business 229

the private insurance companies is busy in Washington, trying
to scuttle government insurance, as government telegraphs and
telephones, government railroads, government shipping, gov-
ernment employment agencies, have all one by one been
scuttled.

The thieves fall out; and also new thieves are continually
trying to break into the "ring." There is always an enormous
temptation presented by our peculiar newspaper situation ; our
Journalism is maintaining a vacuum, with incessant pressure
on the outside. The people want the news ; the people clamor
for the news ; and there is always a mass of vitally important
news withheld. The Socialist papers are publishing scraps of
it, orators are turning it into wild rumor on ten thousand
soap-boxes ; if only the people could get it in a newspaper or
a magazine, what fortunes they would pay! And of course
there are wide-awake men in the world of Journalism who
know this: what more natural than that one of them should
now and then yield to the temptation to get rich by telling
the truth ?

The whole history of the American magazine-world is
summed up in that formula. Some fifteen years ago our
magazine publishers made the discovery of this unworked
gold-mine; "McClure's," "Success," "Everybody's," "The
American," "Hampton's," "Pearson's," the "Metropolitan,"
even the staid and dignified "Century" jumped in to work this
mine. Their circulations Degan to go up — a hundred thousand
increase a month was not unknown in those days of popular
delirium. Magazine publication became what it had never
before been in American history, and what it has never been
since — a competitive industry, instead of a camouflaged propa-
ganda. Is it not a complete vindication of my thesis, that in
a couple of years half a dozen magazines were able to build
up half a million circulation, by no other means whatever than
telling what the newspapers were refusing to tell? And is it
not a proof of the pitiful helplessness of the public, that they
still go on reading these same magazines, in spite of the fact
that they have been bought up by "the interests," and are
filled with what one of their "kept" editors described to me,
in a voice of unutterable loathing, as : "Slush for the women !"

For, of course, the industrial autocracy very quickly
awakened to the peril of these "muck-raking" magazines, and
set to work to put out the fire. Some magazines were offered

330 The Bkass Check

millions, and sold out. Those that refused to sell out had
their advertising trimmed down, their bank-loans called, their
stockholders intimidated — until finally, in one way or another,
they consented to "be good."

"Success" refused to "be good"; it persisted in exposing
Cannonism, and maintaining a "People's Lobby" in Washing-
ton; so "Success" was put out of business. The "National
Post" adopted a radical policy, and it was put out of business ;
likewise "Human Life," edited by Alfred Henry Lewis; like-
wise the "Twentieth Century Magazine," edited by B. O.
Flower; likewise the "Times Magazine" — a mohthly having
nothing to do with the "New York Times,", but edited by a
young man of means who naively supposed that he would be
allowed to tell the truth to the people of New York. "Pear-
son's" of the old regime was brought to 'ruin, and it survives
in its new form by the defiant genius of one man, Frank
Harris. "Harper's Weekly" started out bravely, with Nor-
man Hapgood as editor, and Charles R. Crane as "angel";
for two or three years it fought the advertising boycott, and
then it died.

In the "Profits of Religion" I told in detail the story of
how "Hampton's Magazine" was put out of business. I did
not intend to repeat this story, but it happens that J have
just met my old friend Ben Hampton again, and have gathered
fresh details. I will let him tell his own story :

Never in the history of magazine-publishing was there such a
great success in such a short time as that of "Hampton's." This is
not my conversation. It is simply the records of the American News
Company. We had, I think, 425,000 circulation, and we broke all
records for the same length of time. No other magazine ever suc-
ceeded with an investment as small as ours. When they took the
magazine away from me I think we had nearly thirty thousand dollars
a month advertising.

But it is a peculiarity of magazines that when they grow
too fast they lose money for a time. You have contracted for
a year to publish advertisements, based on a circulation of a
hundred thousand copies. If, three months later you have
four hundred thousand circulation, you are giving four times
as much as you were paid for; also, you have to have four
times as much paper and press-work, for which you do not
get returns until three months later. Hampton put in all his
fortune and his wife's, and then he started selling stock to his

The Empiee of Business 231

readers. He had just got by the difficult place ; his printing-
company and the bank which owned the printing-company had
audited his books, and the bank-auditor had certified that in
the first four months of 1911 the magazine "had earned a profit
of not less than three thousand and not more than seven
thousand dollars per month."

Yet they put "Hampton's Magazine" out of business!
Hampton had started Charles Edward Russell's articles expos-
ing the "New Haven" swindle — ^two or three years before the
truth broke out, you understand. An agent from the "New
Haven" came to inform him that if he started this publication,
he would be put out of business. I now learn for the first
time the name of this agent — Sylvester J. Baxter. Readers of
the "Profits of Religion" will give a start of recognition: the
same gentleman who contributed that wonderful boost of the
"New Haven" to the "Outlook," organ of the Clerical Camou-
flage! And the "Outlook" pretended not to know that this
was an official boost of the "New Haven," and to have been
astonished when the "New Haven" ordered a big edition of
this issue! ,

Let Ben Hampton tell the rest of the story :

A nice young man got a job in our accounting department. He
was one of the finest fellows we had ever had around. He was willing
to work days and nights, and he did twork days and nights, and one
night when he was working, he took a copy of our list of stockholders.
Of course, we did not find this out for months. In the meantime, a
man and a woman, working separately, visited all our stockholders
they could reach and told them I was robbing the Company. They
said I had a large estate in the Adirondacks and a home in the Fifth
Avenue district of New York City. At that time Mrs. Hampton and I
were having a time to buy clothing for the children. We were drawing
almost no salary from the magazine, and we had put all our money
in the undertaking. In fact, we were near the line of desperation, we
were so hard up.

Something like twenty brokers on the Wall Street curb began to
advertise our five dollars par stock at four dollars, down to three
dollars a share. We sent to them and offered to buy the stock and
were never able to buy one share. One of the brokers afterwards
admitted to us that they had none of the stock, and that they were
paid to do the advertising.

All these methods, of course, created confusion in the minds of
our stockholders, and practically killed our efforts to raise thirty
thousand dollars, which was the insignificant sum of money needed to
pay off our paper bill. We were entitled to a line of credit of three
hundred thousand dollars at the paper makers. We owed the paper
maker, I think, about forty thousand dollars and he notified us

332 The Brass Check

arbitrarily on a Monday that we would have to pay the bill Wednesday,
or he would decline to furnish paper for the current edition, which
was then on the press.

When I saw trouble coming I got together a committee of my
stockholders in New York City, and a group of about a dozen men
endorsed three notes of ten thousand dollars each. The- net worth of
these dozen men was over two million dollars. We took the notes to
one bank in New York City. The bank accepted them. We checked
against them, and got money on them, and the next day were notified
we would have to take the notes out of the bank.

Of course you say this is an illegal proceeding, and can't be done.
I assure you it was done. We were thrown out of that bank, after
the bank had accepted our paper, and after we had checked against it.
The manager of the bank told me that he was powerless — that the
"down-town" folks had thrown us out. Several other banks that had
loaned me money for ten years told me that they could not do anything
for me now — that I- was in bad "down-town."

One banker who flatly said he would loan us money whether
Morgan's crowd wanted him to or not, was put out of business himself
within a few months. This man's name is Earle. He was then running
the Nassau Bank. I do not know whether Earle would tell his story
or not, but the way the Morgan crowd drove him out of the banking
business was one of the coldest-blooded things I ever heard of. They
punished him for trying to accept perfectly good banking-paper to help
me out of my crisis.

The foregoing facts are dictated hurriedly but there are some
points in them that I believe you will want. Of course you know the
finish of the properties. Within ten days after the thing began to
close in on me, I had to turn my affairs over to the lawyers, and then
a group of people appeared who were said to be the "International
Correspondence" group of Scranton, Pa. They brought in letters from
bankers, etc., showing they were very reputable and high-classed, and
I had the choice of going into the hands of the receiver, or letting
them take the property. They paid me just money enough so I could
get my stock out of hock. The rest of the money they were to pay
me was evidenced by a contract. I turned the contract over to my
attorneys for protection of my preferred stockholders. Within a few
weeks' time we became convinced that the fellows who had taken over
the property intended to loot it. The bookkeeper told me they took
one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars out of the property
in a few months, and took the books down to the East River and threw
them off the bridge.

The result of it all was that I worked with the United States
Government and had the crowd indicted. In time we brought them to
trial. The trial lasted four or five weeks. We literally could not
prove anything. We did prove that "Hampton's Magazine" was a
valuable piece of property and that it was making money, but we could
not prove that the fellows who got it were crooks. AH the records
were destroyed. The result was, the judge threw the case out of court,
after it had been in court for four or five weeks, and we never got back
any of the money. Of course, the property in the meantime had
been ruined.

The Empire of Business 233

I have told about several of the magazines which consented
to "be good." I have shown the pitiful plight of the "Amer-
ican," and the miserable piffle they are publishing. And what
is the meaning of it ? The meaning was given in an item pub-
lished in the "New York Press" early in 1911, when the
"American Magazine" was taken over by the Crowell Pub-
lishing Company. The "Press" stated that this concern was
controlled by Thomas W. Lament, of J. P. Morgan and Com-
pany, and declared "The 'American' will do no more muck-
raking." In answer, the "American" in its next issue made
a statement, haughtily announcing that the same editors, John
S. Phillips, Ray Stannard Baker, Ida Tarbell and Finley Peter
I)unne were remaining in charge, and that "the policy of the
magazine will be unchanged." To a discussion of this, my own
language is inadequate ; I have to employ the vocabulary of my
son, a student in high school : "The poor boobs !" Four years
these editors stuck it out, and then they quit, and a couple of
young fellows who had been their office-clerks are now the
"editors" of the "American Magazine" — which boasts a mil-
lion circulation, and fifty-eight thousand lines of advertise-
ments per month ! Now, as I write, I learn that this Crowell
Publishing Company has purchased "Collier's," and we shall
see the same thing happening to our "National Weekly" !

In the same tragic way, my old friend Ridgway, who
published the "Condemned Meat Industry," is out of "Every-
body's," and a new and wholly "tame" staff is in charge,
acceptable to the Butterick Publishing Co. In the same way
S. S. McClure was turned out of his magazine, which once
published Ida Tarbell's exposure of Standard Oil, and now
publishes the solemn futilities of Cleveland Moffett, and anti-
Socialist propaganda by the unspeakable Newell Dwight
Hillis. It happened the other day that I was glancing over a
back number of "McClure's," and my eye was caught by the
opening instalment of a serial, announced in this style :

At last! A great new novel by the author of "The Broad High-
way." "BELTANE THE STRONG," by JEFFREY FARNOL, who
also wrote "The Amateur Gentleman" and "The Money-Moon." This
is no ordinary story. Many novelists would have written three books,
some six, in the time Jeffrey Farnol has given to this tremendous love-
tale of Beltane aiid Lady Helen. The result is the finest thing of its
kind "McQure's" has ever printed — ^by all means the novel of the year.

And opposite this a full-page pink and purple illustration ^

234 The Beass Check

of a misty, mystical girl in a thrilling state of semi-nudity, with
this quotation:

Breathless and as one entranced he gazed upon her : saw how her
long hair glowed a wondrous red 'neath the kisses of the dying sun;
saw how her purpled gown, belted at the slender waist, clung about
the beauties of her shapely body ; saw how the little shoe peeped forth
from the perfumed mystery of its folds — and so stood speechless,
bound by the spell of her beauty.

"The perfumed mystery of its folds!" Such is the per-
fumed garbage now being fed to the American public in the
name of Sam McClure!

Or take the "Metropolitan," which a few years ago an-
nounced itself as a Socialist magazine. We were all tre-
mendously thrilled by the idea.that the money of Harry Payne
Whitney was to be used to bring about Social Justice in
-America; but then we saw the "Metropolitan" suppress its
expose of Rasputin at behest of the embassy of the late Tsar ;
now we see it turning over its editorial columns to Gen.
Leonard Wood, to be used in a propaganda for universal
military training! In this greatest crisis of history, the peo-
ple's cause is left without a single champion in our popular
magazines. There are only the Socialist papers, and two or
three radical weeklies of limited circulation; the rest is
Barbarism.

In every newspaper-office in America the same struggle
between the business-office and the news-department is going
on all the time. The business of getting the news involves
"hustle," and young brains are constantly being brought in,
and these young brains have to be taught the discipline of
special privilege, and sometimes they never entirely submit.
They have powerful arguments on their side. "You want
circulation, don't you? What's the use of a paper without
circulation? And how can you get circulation if you let the
fellow around the corner have this 'scoop'?" So the owner
of the paper has to get busy and make a gentleman's agree-
ment with the other papers to suppress the news; and some-
times it turns out that the other fellow isn't a gentleman, and
there is a row, and the live young "hustlers" get their way for
a while, and the public gets a bit of the news.

Various stages of this struggle are exemplified by dif-
ferent newspapers, or by the same newspaper at different
times. You may see a staid old family organ — say the "New

The Empire of Business 235

York Tribune," owned by a rich capitalist, Whitelaw Reid,
who publishes it as a side issue to gratify his vanity, taking
his pay in the form of an ambassadorship. The circulation
of such a paper will go steadily down. But then perhaps the
old man will die, and his sons will take charge, and his sons
won't feel like paying out twenty or thirty thousand dollars
a month, and will get a "live newspaper man" to "put life
into" the paper; or perhaps they will sell out to people who
have less money, and will be tempted to give the public a
little of what it wants.

The fundamental thing that the public wants is, of course,
enough to eat. Modern society is complex, and there are
thousands of public issues clamoring for newspaper attention,
but in the final analysis all these questions boil down to one
question — why is the cost of living going up faster than wages
and salaries? So the spectre of "radicalism" haunts every
newspaper ofHce. The young publisher who wants to make
money, the "live newspaper man" who wants to make a repu-
tation, find themselves at every hour tempted to attack some
form of privilege and exploitation.

So come "crusades." The kind of crusade which the news-
paper undertakes will depend upon the character of circulation
for which it is bidding. If the paper sells for three cents, and
is read by bankers and elderly maiden aunts, the newspaper
will print the sermons of some clergyman who is exposing the
horrors of the red-light district, or it will call on the district
attorney to begin prosecuting the loan-sharks who are robbing
the poor, or it will start a free ice fund for babies in the
tenements. Any cause will do, provided the victims are
plunderers of a shady character — ^that is, small plunderers.

Or perhaps the newspaper is a popular organ. It sells at
a low price to the common people. In that case it may go to
extremes of radicalism ; it may clamor for government owner-
ship, and attack big public service corporations in a way that
seems entirely independent and fearless. You say: "Surely
this is honest journalism," and you acquire the habit of read-
ing that newspaper. But then gradually you see the campaign
die down, the great cause forgotten. The plundering of the
public goes right on, the only thing that has been changed is
that you, who used to be a reader of the "World," are now a
reader of the "Journal"; and that is the change which the
"Journal" had in mind from the outset. You will see the

236 The Brass Check

"Journal" tabulating the amount of advertising it publisht-^
each week or each month, and boasting that it is greater than
the "World" publishes ; and maybe you feel proud about that,
you like to be in the boat with the best fishermen — even
though you are there as a fish.

Anyone who is familiar with the newspaper-world can
think of a score of publications to which the above statement
would apply. There exists a chain of one-cent evening papers
scattered over the country, the Scripps papers, catering to
working-class audiences. They were founded by a real radical
and friend of the people, E. W. Scripps, and for a decade or
two were the main resource of the workers in many localities.
Now E. W. Scripps is a sick man, out of the game, and his
eldest son, who runs the papers, is a young business man,
interested in the business management of a great property ; so
in one city after another you see the Scripps papers "toned-
down." They espouse the cause of strikers no longer. The
other day I was staggered to find them dragging out that
shop-worn old bugaboo, the nationalization of women in
Russia! In the Seattle strike the Scripps paper, the "Star,"
"scabbed" on the strike, and its editorial attitude won it the
name,, the "Shooting Star."

Or take the "New York World." This paper was built up
by one crusade after another ; it was the people's friend for a
generation. Today it is a property worth several million
dollars, living on its reputation. It still makes, of course, the
old pretenses of "democracy," but when it comes to a real
issue, it is an organ of bitter and savage reaction, it is edited
by the telegraph and railroad securities in which the Pulitzer
fortune is invested. The "New York World's" opinion of
the "Plumb plan" is that of a Russian grand duke discussing
Bolshevism.

Or the Hearst papers. They too have been made out of
the pennies of the masses ; they too have lured the masses by
rainbows of many-colored hopes. They still ask for govern-
ment ownership — when they happen to think of it; but they
lie remorselessly about radicals, and exclude the word Social-
ism from their columns, except when some Socialist is sent to
jail. They support Sinn Fein and twist the lion's tail, because
it brings in the Irish-Catholic pennies ; but the one revolution
in which their heart is really engaged is the one which is to
make Hearst's Mexican acres into American acres.

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE DREGS OF THE CUP

I would call the reader's attention to the fact that in this
book I am dealing with our standard magazines and news-
papers, the ones which are considered respectable, which all
ladies and gentlemen accept as they accept the doctor's pills
and the clergyman's sermons, the Bible and the multiplication
table and Marian Harland's cook-book. I have not made my
case easy by dwelling on the cultural content of the "mail
order" and "household" publications, of which there are scores
with a circulation of a million or more ; or of the agricultural
papers of the country, whose total circulation amounts to tens
of millions. How I could freeze your blood if I were to
summarize the contents of the "Ladies' World," the "Gentle-
woman," the "Household Guest," "Home Life," the "House-
hold," "Comfort," the "Home Friend," "Mother's Magazine,"
"Everyday Life," the "People's Popular Monthly," the "Clover
Leaf" weeklies and the "Boyce" weeklies, the "Saturday
Blade" and the "Chicago Ledger" ! If I were to tell about the
various "Family Story Papers," which are left in area-ways
for servants ! Or the "fashion-papers," the "Butterick Trio,"
with close to two millions, the "Woman's World," with two
millions, and "Vogue," the "Delineator," the "Parisienne," the
"Ladies' Pictorial," "Needlecraft" with their half million or
more. Or the "fast" papers, which cultivate a taste for per-
fumed smut — ^and which I will not advertise by naming! Or
the papers of the sporting and racing and gambling worlds,
down to the "Police Gazette," with its "leg-shows" and illus-
trated murders !

Also the local papers, the small dailies, the weeklies and
semi-monthlies and monthlies by the thousands and tens of
thousands ! If you wish to get a complete picture of American
Journalism, you must take these into account; you must
descend from the heights of metropolitan dignity into the
filthiest swamps of provincial ignorance and venality. Hardly
a week passes that someone does not send me a copy of some
country paper which calls for the stringing-up of Socialists to

337

238 The Brass Check

lamp-posts, and denounces highly educated Bolshevik leaders
in editorials with half a dozen grammatical errors to the
column.

And if you go to the small town in Pennsylvania or
Arkansas or Colorado, or wherever this paper is published, you
find a country editor on the level of intelligence of the local
hprse-doctors of Englewood, New Jersey, and Tarrytown,
New York, whose proceedings I have described in this book.
Frequently you find this editor hanging on by his eye-teeth,
with a mortgage at the local bank, carried because of favors
he does to the local money-power. You find him getting a
regular monthly income from the copper-interests or the coal-
interests or the lumber-interests, whatever happens to be
dominant in that locality. You find him heavily subsidized
at election-time by the two political machines of these great
interests. His paper is used to print the speeches of the candi-
dates of these interests, and five or ten or fifty thousand copies
of this particular issue are paid for by these interests and
distributed at meetings. Campaign circulars and other litera-
ture are printed in the printing-office of this newspaper, and
of course the public advertising appears in its columns — a graft
which is found in every state and county of the Union, and is
a means by which hundreds of millions of dollars are paid
as a disguised subsidy by the interests which run our two-party
political system.

Our great metropolitan newspapers take a fine tone of
dignity, they stand for the welfare of the general public, they
are above all considerations of greed. But the conditions
under which these small-town newspapers are published do
not permit them to pretend to such austerity, or even to con-
ceive of it. They are quite frankly "out for the stuff" — as
everybody else they know is "out for the stuff." For example,
the "Tarrytown News," which jumped on me with its cloven
hoofs, declaring that my home had been raided as a "free
love" place. This "Tarrytown News" explained quite honestly
why it was opposed to allowing agitators to come to Tarrytown
and denounce the Rockefellers. And why was it ? Because the
Rockefellers stood for religion and the home, the Constitution
and the Star-Spangled Banner and the Declaration of Inde-
pendence? No, not at all; it was because the Rockefellers
carried a pay-roll in Tarrytown of thirty thousand dollars a
month !

The Dregs of the Cup 239

The average country or small-town editor is an entirely
ignorant man ; the world of culture is a sealed book to him.
His idea of literature is the "Saturday Evening Post" — only
as a rule he doesn't have time to read it. His idea of art is
a lithograph of the President and Vice-President with a stand
of flags. His idea of music is "Onward, Christian Soldiers,"
and "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." He has an idea what
is good for his readers ; "optimism" and "boost," "cheer-up"
stuff, "mother, home and heaven" stuff, "sob" stuff, "slush for
the women." " He has no money to pay writers, of course ; he
doesn't even set type, except for local news. He gets his
"filler" in the form of "boiler-plate," sent practically free
from Washington and New York — ^this matter containing
fiction, poetry, "special stories," novelty and gossip of the sort
his readers find entertaining. What difference does it make
if sandwiched in between this reading matter is the poisOn
propaganda of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Associa-
tion, of the tariff-lobbyists, the railroad-lobbyists, the liquor-
lobbyists,, the whole machine of capitalist graft and greed?

Several years ago I had a brilliant and wonderful idea. I.
was finishing "King Coal," and thought that I had an excellent
serial, timely, and full of swift incident. I ascertained" that
there were seventeen thousand weekly newspapers in America ;
surely among this number must be a few hundred which would
like to give their readers the truth about labor conditions in a
basic American industry! I would build up a little syndicate
of my own, I would market my future books, and perhaps
those of other writers! I prepared a circular, outlining the
plan, and offering the entire serial for some nominal sum, ten
or fifteen dollars, plus the cost of the plates from which the
printing would be done. I prepared a sample sheet, containing
the first half-dozen chapters of "King Coal" ; you may consult
the volume and satisfy yourself as to whether they are inter-
esting chapters. I sent out the offer to thousands of weeklies,
and waited for replies. How many do you think I got? I
didn't keep a record, but you could have counted them on your
fingers, without your thumbs!

No, the editors of country and small-town newspapers are

not giving their readers the truth about labor conditions in

basic American industries. They know, as the phrase is,

"which side their Dread is buttered on," and they keep that

-side up with care. I have said that there are fortunes to be

340 The Brass Check

made by giving the news to the people; I must qualify the
statement by explaining that it must be done on a large scale,
and you must have capital to keep you going until you reach
the people who can understand you. If you try it on a small
scale, and without capital, you are crushed before you get your
head out of the mud. And you know that, and govern your-
self accordingly. The other day I had a call from the editor
of a small newspaper, out here in this broad free West, about
which you read in romances. The editor explained that he
hadn't dared to write and order my books ; he couldn't afford
to let a check, payable to me, go through his bank; he called
personally, and would carry the books home in his trunk !

Also this chapter would be incomplete without mention of
the swarm of "house organs," published by big industrial con-
cerns for the edification of their employes. According to the
"New York Times" (Oct. 36, 1919), there are three hundred
and seventy-five such publications in America, many with cir-
culations running into thousands. During the war seventy-
three were started in the shipyard industry alone. "During
the past spring and stmimer they multiplied like bacteria."
And the "Times" tells admiringly of the subtle arts whereby
slave-labor is cajoled and idealized: "saying it in ragtime
.... jazz variations to the vast delight of its reading pub-
lic .... a Diamond Dick sort of tale .... the story has
punch .... all as intimate as the small town weekly" ....
and so on through columns of poison prescriptions. They trap
the poor devils in their homes :

The woman's page is one of the most carefully thought out de-
partments, on the theory that the influence of the family is counted on
to sway the man from radicalism. Fully half of this group of publica-
tions is sent to the man's home by mail, to give the wife first innings.
In this particular magazine the woman's page is fairly crawling with
babies

You hardly notice the propaganda even when you're looking for
it with a microscope, but it is there. It is in the weave and the woof,
rather than in the conspicuous pattern. You find it in similes, "like
soap in the home of a Bolshevik. Some novelty !" The agitator is taken
down from the dignity of his soapbox throne and flippantly advised
to bathe.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
OWNING THE PRESS

The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains
its control over Journalism are four : First, ownership of the
papers ; second, ownership of the owners ; third, advertising
subsidies ; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there
exists in America a control of news and of current comment
more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry. This
statement may sound extreme, but if you will think about it
you will realize that in the very nature of the case it must be
true. It does not destroy the steel trust if there are a few
independent steel-makers, it does not destroy the money trust
if there are a few independent men, of wealth, but it does
destroy the news trust if there is a single independent news-
paper to let the cat out of the bag. -

The extent to which outright ownership of newspapers
and magazines has been acquired by our financial autocracy
would cause astonishment if it were set forth in figures. One
could take a map of America and a paint-brush, and make
large smudges of color, representing journalistic ownership of
whole districts, sometimes of whole states, by special interests.
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan would be swept with a
yellow smudge — ^that is copper. The whole state of Montana
would be the same, and the greater part of Arizona. A black
smudge for Southern Colorado, and another in the Northern
part — ^that is coal. A gray smudge in Western Pennsylvania,
and another in Illinois — ^that is steel. A green smudge in
Wisconsin, and another in Oregon and Washington — ^that is
lumber. A white smudge in North Dakota and Minnesota —
that is the milling trust, backed by the railroads and the
banks. A dirty smudge in central California, representing
"Southern Pacific" and "United Railways," now reinforced by
"M. and M."

Ten years ago there was a terrific reform campaign in San
Francisco, and the reformers started a little weekly called the
"Liberator." I quote from one issue:
16 241

242 The Brass Check

Many San Francisco weekly papers were bought up with tash
payments, coming principally from the offices of the "United Rail-
roads." But this did not seem to satisfy the plans of the defense, and
suddenly the Calkins Syndicate developed into a concern of astonishing
magnitude. From the publisher of obscure weeklies and dailies, it
established a modern publishing plant, and took over much of the
printing of the "Sunset Magazine," which contract alone brought the
Calkins outfit several thousand dollars a month. The "Sacramento
Union" and the "Fresno Herald" were purchased, and a bid made for
the "San Francisco Post." The syndicate failed to get the "Post." The
"San Francisco Globe" was started instead. Whatever money could do
in the newspaper line, Calkins for a few months did. Newspaper men
knew, of course, that the losses were enormous. The questions were,
"Who is filling the sack? How long will the sack last?"

And wherever in America there has been an honest inves-
tigation, the same conditions have been revealed. The Calkins
syndicate had its exact counterpart in Montana; or rather
two counterparts, for Senator Clark and Marcus Daly,
copper kings, were carrying on a feud, and each purchased or
established a string of newspapers to slander the other. Now
the gigantic "Anaconda" has swallowed them both, and there
are only two newspapers in Montana which are not owned or
controlled by "copper." One of these is owned by a politician
who, I am assured, serves the "interests" without hire ; and the
other is the "Butte Daily Bulletin," Socialist, whose editor goes
in hourly peril of his life. In Oklahoma nearly everything is
"Standard Oil"; and at the other end of the continent is the
New York "Outlook," one of whose important stockholders
was discovered to be James Stillman, of the National City
Bank of New York — Standard Oil !

I have given elsewhere a picture of conditions in Los
Angeles. In San Diego are two papers owned by the sugar-
king, and one paper of the Scripps group. In San Francisco
are two Hearst papers, the "Examiner" and the "Call"; the
"Chronicle," owned by "Mike" de Young, whom I have por-
trayed ; and the "Bulletin" whose assorted knaveries will soon
be set forth in detail. Also there is a monthly, the "Sunset,"
formerly owned by the Southern Pacific, and now serving the
anti-union campaign of th6 "M. and M." — ^the Merchants' and
Manufacturers' Association which has raised a million dollar
slush fund ; also a weekly, popularly known as "the Rich Man's
Door-mat," and a number of gossip-weeklies and "kept"
political sheets. The "Labor Digest" has recently gone over
with startling suddenness to the cause of capital, reversing

Owning the Press 243

itself absolutely on the Mooney case. The publisher, a veteran
labor union official, recently informed an applicant for the job
of editor that he was "running the paper to make money."
The applicant said that he favored the Plumb plan ; so there
was "nothing doing."

Moving on up the coast, there is the "Portland Oregonian,"
owned by the estate of a huge-scale lumber operator, one of
the richest men in the Northwest. An employe of this paper
writes to me :

He was so public-spirited and free-handed that the appraisal of
the estate showed that he had invested to the extent of five dollars in
war savings stamps and in only five thousand dollars worth of war
bonds, and that under direct compulsion, so it was revealed, of his
fellow-citizens. The "Oregonian" is born of corporate power, con-
ceived for corporate purposes, and exists to do the corporate bidding,
avowedly so.

Also there is the "Portland Telegram," owned by the two
sons of a timber magnate, who obtained most of his lands by
the popular "dummy entry" system. The same informant,
who once worked for this paper, writes me of these owners:

Neither has ever had to do a stroke of work in his life, and the
attitude of both toward the man on the payroll is the mogt typically
snobbish I have ever encountered. The younger brother directs the
paper, although he could not earn fifteen dollars a week salary in any
department if he were put on his own. The paper consequently is so
wobbly in its policies and practices that it rapidly is" becoming a joke.

In this vicinity is a third paper, owned by a politician of
whom my informant writes:

He is a frankly dissolute old beast who plays the game of politics
to bring money to his paper. His tendencies are all to the corporation
side, and his business morals are as avowedly rotten as his personal
Of late months he has displayed every sign of decaying mentality, and
the paper now is practically conducted by his business manager.

And then, moving farther North to Seattle, there is the
"Times," an enormously valuable property, built up with the
financial assistance of the Hill interests and the Great
Northern Railroad — which, I believe, made more money out
of a small investment than any other enterprise in America.
The "Times" is paying five per cent dividends on six million
dollars, and so naturally believes in the profit system. Also
there is the "Star," a Scripps paper — ^the "Shooting Star,"
which was willing to lose thirty-five thousand readers in order

244 The Brass Check

to smash the Seattle strike. And finally there is the "Post-
Intelligencer," which was purchased in the interest of James J.
Hill and the Great Northern Railroad, and placed one hundred
and seventy thousand dollars worth of its bonds in the hands
of these interests. The paper was taken over, says my inform-
ant, by "the notorious Jacob Furth interests of Seattle. Furth
was head of the Seattle transportation lines and the Seattle
National Bank, and was the village pawnbroker. The paper
had gradually gotten more and more into debt to the banks,
and its present ownership arose out of that fact."

Such is the newspaper plight of the Pacific coast! And
now come to the Atlantic coast, and take one of our great
centers of culture ; take the Hub of the Universe, take Boston.
The newspaper plight of Boston is beyond telling. There is
the "Evening Transcript," owned by an extremely wealthy
and reactionary family, serving every wealthy and reactionary
interest, and incidentally taking advertising bribes, as I shall
presently show. There is the "Boston American," owned by
Hearst, and the "Boston Daily Advertiser," also owned by
Hearst. The latter is the oldest newspaper in Boston, and a
year ago its circulation was cut down to a thousand copies,
its publication being continued merely in order that Hearst
may retain its Associated Press franchise. There is the "Bos-
ton Globe," and its evening edition, controlled, I am informed,
by Standard Oil. There is the "Boston Herald," and its eve-
ning edition, the "Traveler," owned by the Plant and United
Shoe Machinery interests, with ex-Senator Crane holding the
balance of power. There is the "Post," also heavily in debt
to Crane — who is one of the leading reactionaries of New
England. The owner of the "Post" is described to me by
one who knows him as "a sick man, who like all men who
have accumulated a great deal of wealth, is inclined to be
conservative and fearful of change."

Finally, there is the "Christian Science Monitor," owned
and run by a group of wealthy metaphysicians, who teach that
Poverty is a Delusion of Mortal Mind, and that Hunger can
be relieved by Thinking. I make it a practice when a public
emergency arises, and I have something to say which I think is
important, to send it to leading newspapers by telegraph collect.
Sometimes the newspapers publish it, nearly always they
accept it and pay for it — ^because they judge there is a pos-
sibility of their getting something important by this method.

Owning the Press 245

The "Christian Science Monitor" stands alone among Amer-
ican newspapers in that it wrote me not to send it telegrams,
because there was no chance of its caring to print what I
might have to say!

Or take Cincinnati, where I happen to have friends on the
"inside." There is the "Cincinnati Inquirer" and "Post,"
owned by the , estate of McLean, who made thirty million
dollars out of street railway and gas franchises, obtained by
bribery. This estate also owns the "Washington Post," whose
knaveries I shall tell about later on. And there is the "Times-
Star," owned by Charles P. Taf t, brother of our ex-president.
"Charlie" Taft married twenty million dollars, and bought a
newspaper, and started out as a valiant reformer, and every-
body in Cincinnati thought how lovely that a fine, clean, young
millionaire was going in for civic reform. But at the very
outset he trod on the toes of Boss Cox, and Boss Cox showed
how he could injure the Taft fortune; whereupon "Charlie"
made a deal with the boss, and since then his paper has been
the leading champion of civic corruption.

In most big cities you find papers owned by big local
"trusts," and one or two others belonging to a "trust" of news-
papers, a publishing-system like that of Calkins or Capper or
Munsey or Scripps or Hearst. For the rule that the big fish
swallow the little ones applies in the newspaper world as else-
where. The publisher of a big newspaper comes upon a
chance to buy a small newspaper in a neighboring city, and
presently he finds himself with a chain of newspapers. Then
he learns of a magazine that is "on the rocks," and it occurs
to him that a magazine can help his newspapers, or vice versa.
So you find Munsey, a self-confessed stock-gambler, with
three magazines and several newspapers; the Hearst machine
with a dozen newspapers, also "Hearst's Magazine," the
"Cosmopolitan," and four other periodicals. Every month in
the Hearst newspapers you read editorials which are disguised
advertisements of these magazines.

Also it has been discovered that magazines can combine to
their financial advantage. The agents who come to your home
and pester the life out of you for subscriptions find that they
can get more of your money by offering clubbing-rates for a
group of magazines : a farm paper, another papfer with "slush
for the women," a third paper with slush for the whole
family — such as I have quoted from the "American" and

246 The Brass Check

"McCIure's." So you see a vast commercial machine building
itself up. There is Street and Smith, with no less than eight
magazines, all of them having enormous circulations, and
devoted exclusively to trash. There is the Butterick Company,
with seven; "Vanity Fair" and the Crowell Company, with
four each; the Curtis Company, "Munsey's," the "Atlantic,"
the "World's Work," the "Smart Set," the "Red Book"— each
with three. In England we have seen great chains of publica-
tions built up in connection with the selling of cocoa and soap ;
in America we see them built up in connection with the selling
of dress-patterns, as with the -Buttericks ; with the boosting of
moving pictures, as formerly done by "McCIure's"; with
grocery-stores and stock-manipulation, as "Munsey's"; with
the selling of subscription-books, as "Collier's," or dictionaries,
as the "Literary Digest." Or perhaps it will be a magazine
run by a book-publisher, as a means of advertising and review-
ing his own books; and if you investigate, you find that the
book-publisher in turn is owned by some great financial inter-
est, which sees that he publishes commercial stuff and rejects
. all new ideas. This process of centralization has continued in
England until now Lord Northcliffe owns fifty or sixty maga-
zines and newspapers of all varieties.

Northcliffe had a personal quarrel with Lloyd George, and
that part of British "Big Business" which makes its profits
out of the Lloyd George policies felt the need of more pub-
licity, and went into the market and bought the "Chronicle"
for several million dollars. When the masters of industry
pay such sums for a newspaper, they buy not merely the
building and the presses and the name; they buy what they
call the "good-will" — ^that is, they buy you. And they proceed
to change your whole psychology — everything that you believe
about life. You might object to it, if you knew ; but they do
their work so subtly that you never guess what is happening
to you!

By way of illustration, let me tell you the amusing story of
one American newspaper which was thus bought in the open
market. Some years ago there was a Standard Oil magnate,
H. M. Flagler, who took a fancy to the state of Florida, and
entertained himself by developing it into a leisure-class resort.
He owned all the railroads, and a great chain of hotels, and
also, as a matter of course, the State legislature. He had the
misfortune to have an insane wife, and the laws of Florida

Owning the Press 247

did not permit him to divorce this wife, so he caused to be
introduced and passed a bill permitting divorce on grounds of
insanity. But, being a moral citizen, who believed in the
sanctity of marriage for everybody but himself, Mr. Flagler
allowed this law to stand only long enough for him to get his
divorce. He then had his legislature repeal the law, so that
no one might be corrupted by his evil example.

He married another woman, and shortly afterwards left
her a widow with a hundred million dollars. Needless to say,
such widows are not left very long to mourn ; Mrs. Flagler
espoused a certain Judge Bingham, a leading citizen of Ken-
tucky. A pre-nuptial contract barred him from inheriting her
estate; nevertheless she managed, eight months after their
wedding, and six weeks before her death, to present to him a
trifling matter of five million dollars. Then she died, and he,
being lonely, and in possession of spare cash, looked around
for something to play with. He decided to play with you — ^that
is, with a newspaper !

There was an old newspaper in Louisville, the "Courier-
Journal," which had been made by the genius of Col. Henry
Watterson, a picturesque old-style Democrat, a radical of the
Jeflfersonian type, who stormed with vivid and diverting
ferocity at the "robber barons" of Wall Street. The paper
had got into financial difficulties, owing to family quarrels of
the owners, and Judge Bingham bought it, with its evening
edition, the "Louisville Times," for something over a million
dollars. Col. Watterson was to stay as "Editor Emeritus";
that is, he was to be a figure-head, to blind the public to the
sinister realities of modern capitalism. But modern capitalism
is too greedy and too ruthless a force for the old-style gentle-
man of the South ; Col. Watterson could not stand the editorial
policy of his new owner, so he quit, and today the "Courier-
Journal" challenges- the "Los Angeles Times" as an organ of
venornous reaction. I quote one sample of its editorials — ^the
subject being that especially infamous variety of pervert known
as the "Christian Socialist clergyman." Behold him ! —

Some person who has never worked in his life — except his tongue —
and yet talks to his "congregation" about problems of workingmen.
This rogue is sometimes an docutionary shyster who rambles about the
downtrodden — meaning his prosperous followers and, of course, him-
self— tiie expected revolution, the rights of the pee-pul, and so on.
What he desires to do is to heroize himself, to appear to his pee-pul as

248 The Bkass Check

a courageous leader against oppression; which is to say, against the
law and the Government which protect this people in the possession
of their homes, automobiles and liberties.

Col. Watterson resigned. But as a rule the professional
journalist pockets his Brass Check, and delivers the goods to
his master in the silence and secrecy of the journalistic brothel.
A professional journalist may be defined as a man who holds
himself ready at a day's notice to adjust his opinions to the
pocket-book of a new owner. I have heard Arthur Brisbane
remark that the "New York Times" was sold on several occa-
sions, and on each occasion its "editor" was sold with it. Yet
when you read this "editor's" preachments, they are all so
solemn and dignified, high-sounding and moral — you would
never dream but that you were reading actual opinions of a
man!

Quite recently we saw the "New York Evening Post" put
up on the journalistic bargain-counter. I have told how the
"Evening Post" treated me at various times, so you will see
that the paper was hardly to be classified as "radical." But
during the war it became treasonable to the gigantic trading
corporation which calls itself the British Government; it per-
sisted in this stubborn course, even when it knew that J. P.
Morgan & Company were selling billions of British bonds, and
handling all the purchases of the British Government in
America. When the Bolsheviki gave out the secret treaties of
the Allies, the "Evening Post" was the one non-Socialist news-
paper in America which published them in full. So it was
eviderit that something must be done, and done quickly, about
the "Evening Post."

The paper was in financial difficulties, because of the con-
stantly increasing cost of material and wages. Its owner gave
an option to his associates, with the pledge on their part that
they would not take the paper to "Wall Street"; then, three
weeks later, the paper was sold to Thomas W. Lamqnt, of the
firm of J. P. Morgan & Company; the owner being kept in
ignorance of the name of the purchaser. So, now the "New
York Evening Post" looks upon the peace treaty, and finds
it "a voice from heaven." "A voice from heaven" command-
ing the French to grab the Saar Valley, and the Japs to seize
Shantung! "A voice from heaven" commanding the workers
of Russia to pay the bad debts of the Tsar — ^and to pay them
through the banking-house of J. P. Morgan & Company!

' Owning the Press 249

And if you do not care to get your opinions from the
gigantic trading-corporation vfhich calls itself the British
government, you may read the "New York Evening Mail,"
which was bought with the money of the German government !
Or you may read the "New York Evening Sun," which was
bought by Frank A. Munsey, with part of the million dollars
which he boasted of having made out of your troubles in the
1907 panic. If you do not like papers which are bought and
sold, you may read the "New York Evening Telegram," which
hafe remained the property of the Bennett estate, and is work-
ing for the pocket-book of the Bennett estate, forty-one
editions every week. In the morning, you may read the
"Herald," which is working for the same estate. If you get
tired of the point of view of that estate, you may try the estate
of Whitelaw Reid, capitalist, or of Joseph Pulitzer, invested
in railroads and telegraphs, or of Searles, of the Sugar Trust.
Or, if you prefer living men, you may give up your mind to
the keeping of Adolph Ochs, of the Traction gang, or of Wil-
liam Rockefeller of Standard Oil, or of William Randolph
Hearst of Eternal Infamy. This concludes the list of choices
that are open to you in New York — ^unless you are willing to
read a Socialist paper, the "New York Call"; and of course
you cannot get the "Call" all the time, because sometimes the
policy bar it from the stands, and sometimes the soldier-boys
raid its offices and throw the editors out of the windows, and
sometimes the Postmaster-General bars it from the mails, and
at all times he refuses it second class entry. So if I wish to
get it out here in California, I have to pay two and one half
times as much as I pay for the papers of the Searles estate
and the Pulitzer estate and the Hearst estate and the Bennett
estate and the Reid estate.

CHAPTER XXXIX
THE WAR-MAKERS

What is the moral tone in the offices of these great "kept"
institutions? The best description I know of the inside of
such a newspaper is found in an articl' , "The Blue Pencil,"
by Maxwell Anderson, published in the "New Republic" for
December 14, 1918. It is very evident that Mr. Anderson has
worked in the office of some newspaper ; he doesn't give names,
but his text indicates that the city is San Francisco. The name
of the imaginary owner is H. N. De Smith, and if you are
familiar with San Francisco affairs, you don't have ta be a
wizard *o make your guess.

Mr. Anderson portrays one after another of the staff of
the paper : the managing editor, the assistant managing editor,
the city editor, the copy reader, the reporter, the dramatic
critic, the artist, the designer, the copy boy. Every one of
these persons is a slave with a chain about his neck ; everyone
of them clearly understands that his function in life is to sub»
serv^ the glory of his owner.

They think unkindly of Hank De Smith; they speak derisively of
his park, his policies, and the amount he is supposed to drink up in a
day. But they obey him. Pasted before each man is a tjfped schedule
of prejudice, known technically as the son-of-a-bitch list, and consist-
ing of the names of men who must be given no free publicity. Here
all prominent radicals and the business men who have refused to
advertise in the paper are lumped in an eternal obloquy of silence.

"Refer to Dealer
"Any copy containing name of :

t • ' • » 1^ t

"Names Not to Appear in Headlines :

"Use"Titie"of ''Mr.'' " "'

"Only in connection with H. N. De Smith."

What smouldering envies or balked ambitions may lie behind this
absurd catalogue they do not know. But when this same De Smith
buys a block of charity stock, as a matter of course they run headlines
across the second title page to inform the city of it.

"Praise Hank, from whom all blessings flow," the tall and heavy
Texan sneers gravely.

250

The War-Makees 251

And here is the assistant managing editor; I have inter-
viewed such a managing editor as this, not once, but fifty
times ; and not only in San Francisco, but in a score of other
American cities :

He is acute and politic, as you discover when first you hear him
call up Henry N. De Smith to ask for a decision. Such action is very
seldom necessary. The assistant managing editor knows the owner's
prejudices and failings by long association. He is versed in a most
essential knowledge of what may be printed in the paper, and what
it would be dangerous for the public to know. Under his care comes
the immense problem of general policy, the direction of opinion in the
city in the paths most favorable to his master's fame and fortune.
Nothing unpleasing to friend or advertiser must by any chance appear.
It means nothing to him that given such conditions, advertising becomes
a kind of legitimate blackmail, for his mind is not attuned to delicate
moral vibrations.

Such is San Francisco ; and lest you think that is prejudice,
or an anomaly, come to Chicago and have a glimpse of the
insides of the "Chronicle," given in a book of confessions,
"The Career of a Journalist," by William Salisbury :

It was no easy matter, either, to be Copy Reader on the "Chronicle."
In addition to the average Copy Reader's immense fund of knowledge,
one had to know almost by heart the names of the sixteen corporations
in which owner Walsh was interested, such as banks and street railways
and gas and contracting companies. He had to know, too, the names
of the prominent men Mr. Walsh liked or disliked, so as to treat them
accordingly. A mistake in such things would much more quickly
bring a telephone order from Mr. Walsh's banking oiifices for changes
in the staff than any other error.

It may seem an extreme statement ; but I doubt if there is
a newspaper-office in America in which such things as this do
not happen. There may be newspapers whose owners sternly
■ refrain from using them as a means of personal glorification ;
there may be newspapers which do not give special attention
to the owner'iS after-dinner speeches, and to the social events
that go on in the owner's home. But is there any paper which
does not show consideration for the associates and intimate
friends of the owner? It happened to me once to be sitting
in a hotel-room with a millionaire who was under arrest and
liable to serve ten years in jail. This man's relatives were
among the rulers of the city, and I heard him go to the tele-
phone and call up his relatives, and advise them how to
approach the newspapers, and precisely what instructions to

258 The Bbass Check

give; next morning I saw those instructions followed by the
newspapers. Has any man ever held an executive position on
a newspaper in America without witnessing incidents of this
sort ? The testimony available is not merely that of radicals
and "muck-rakers." Here is a most conservative editor,
Hamilton Holt, in his book, "Commercialism and Journalism,"
mentioning "a certain daily whose editor recently told me that
there was on his desk a list three feet long of prominent people
whose names were not to be mentioned in his paper."

Is there any newspaper which does not show consideration
for the business interests of its owners ? Come to Los Angeles,
which I happen to know especially well, because I live only
twelve miles away from it. It calls itself the "City of the
Angels"; I have taken the liberty of changing the name to
the "City of the Black Angels." This city gets its water-
supply from distant mountains, and its great financial interests
owned vast tracts of land between the city and the sources
of supply. There were four newspapers, all in a state of
most ferocious rivalry; but all of them owned some of this
land, and all of them united in the campaign for an aqueduct.
For years they kept the population terrified by pictures of
failing water-supply; people say they had the water run out
of the reservoirs, and the city parks allowed to dry up! So
they got their aqueduct, and land that had cost forty dollars
an acre became worth a thousand dollars. A single individual
cleared a million dollars by, this deal.

I have given in this book a fairly thorough account of the
"Los Angeles Times," the perfect illustration of a great news-
paper conducted in the financial interest of one man. The
personality of that man infected it so powerfully that the
infection has persisted after the man is dead. I have never
heard anybody in Los Angeles maintain that the "Times" is
an honest newspaper, or a newspaper which serves the public
interest ; but I have heard them say that Otis was "sincere
according to his lights," that "you always knew where to find
him." I have heard this said by several different men, and it
is extraordinary testimony to the extent to which newspaper
knavery can be successful.

No, you didn't "always know where to find Otis" ; for many
years it was a toss-up where you would find him, for Otis had
two offices in Los Angeles. One was the office of the "Times,"

The Wab-Makebs 253

a "Republican" newspaper, maintaining ferociously the "open-
shop" policy — so ferociously that some outraged labor leaders
blew it up with a dynamite-bomb. But at the same time Otis
owned secretly another Los Angeles newspaper, the "Herald" ;
and the "Herald" was an "independent" newspaper, a "Demo-
cratic" newspaper, a "closed-shop" newspaper! So here was
Otis handing out one kind of dope to the Los Angeles public
with one hand, and handing out the opposite kind of dope to
the Los Angeles public with the other hand — and taking in
money from the Los Angeles public with both hands. When
you read my statement that "Big Business stages a sham-battle
every now and then, to make the people think they are con-
trolling the government," you smiled, no doubt — ^taking it for
the exuberance of a radical. But what better proof could
you have of a sham-battle, than to find the same man fighting
furiously on both sides?

And how comes it that the public of Los Angeles is
ignorant of this extraordinary situation? Why, simply that
when the news came out, there was no Los Angeles newspaper
that would feature it ; the newspapers were in on some "deal,"
and the only place the story could be exploited was in "La
FoUette's," in Wisconsin! It was told there by Frank E.
Wolfe, formerly managing editor of the "Herald," the man
who took the orders of Otis and carried them out.

Some thirty years ago my friend Gaylord Wilshire started
in Los Angeles a publication called the "Nationalist," advocat-
ing the ideas of Edward Bellamy. This paper was printed at
the office of the "Los Angeles Express," and one day, walk-
ing down the street, Wilshire met General Otis.

"I see you people have got a weekly paper," said the
General.

"Yes," said Wilshire.

"Well, now, the 'Times' has a new and modern printing-
plant. We would like very much to do that work for you.
Suppose you give us a trial."

"Well, General, it's all right so far as I am concerned,
because I don't mind such things ; but some of my associates
consider that you don't treat our ideas fairly in the 'Times'."

"Oh, now, now, you don't mind a thing like that ! Surely,
now,^you ought to understand a joke!"

254 The Bbass Check

"Well, as I say, I don't mind, but some of my associates
take it seriously."

"Well, I'll show you about that. We'll fix that up very
easily."

So the General went off, and next day there appeared in
the "Times" an editorial speaking very cordially of the Edward
Bellamy brand of social idealism. And thereafter for two
or three weeks, the "Times" spoke pleasantly of the Edward
Bellamy brand of social idealism, and it faithfully reported
the meetings of the Nationalists. But the "Nationalist" did
not change its printing-plant, and so the General got tired of
waiting, and shifted back to his old method of sneering and
abuse. This, you understand, for a job-printing contract
worth fifty, or perhaps a hundred dollars, a week !

By methods such as these Otis grew wealthy, and later
on he purchased six hundred and fifty thousand acres of
land in Northern Mexico. When the Diaz regime was
overthrown, Otis had trouble in getting his cattle out, so he
wanted a counter-revolution in Mexico, and for years the
whole policy of his paper has been directed to bringing on
intervention and conquest of that country. At one time the
Federal authorities indicted Harry Chandler, son-in-law of
Otis, and his successor in control of the "Times," for con-
spiracy to ship arms into Mexico. Mr. Chandler was
acquitted. If you will turn back to page 209 of this book,
you will find a statement by a prominent Los Angeles lawyer
as to jury trials in the "City of the Black Angels."

Mr. Hearst also owns enormous stretches of land in
Mexico, and Mr. Hearst also understands that if Mexico were
conquered and annexed by the United States, the value of his
lands would be increased many times over. Therefore for
fifteen years the Hearst newspapers have been used as a means
of forcing war with Mexico. Mr. Hearst admits and is proud
of the fact that it was he who made the Spanish-American
war. He sent Frederick Remington to Cuba to make pictures
of the war, and Remington was afraid there wasn't going to
be any war, and so cabled Mr. Hearst. Mr. Hearst answered :
"You make the pictures and I'll make the war."

That was in 1897 or 1898. I was a boy just out of college,
and fell victim to this modern kind of "war-making." I was

The War-Makees »55

walking on the street, and heard news-boys shouting an extra,
and saw these words, printed across the front page of *he
"New York Evening Journal" :

WAR
DECLARED !
So I parted with one of my hard-earned pennies, and read :
WAR

may be

DECLARED

■oon

But did that bit of knavery keep me from buying the Hearst
newspapers forever after? It did not. I am an American,
and can no more resist sensational headlines printed in a news-
paper than a donkey can resist a field of fat clover. So I still
take a Hearst newspaper, the "Los Angeles Examiner," and
watch Mr. Hearst prepare my mind for the bloody process, of
annexing millions of Hearst acres to my country. Both the
Hearst paper and the Otis paper print elaborate accounts of
how the government is preparing to invade Mexico. There
are details of diplomatic negotiations and of military prepara-
tions, stories elaborate, complete, and apparently entirely
authentic. Once in a while the State Department issues a
formal denial that it has any such intentions, or is making any
such preparations; the "Times" and "Examiner" print these
denials — and then go on blandly printing their stories ! I am
left to wonder which is lying, the American government or the
American press.

You know the part which the newspapers of Europe took
in the making of the late war, the "last" war, as we were told.
You know that the Krupps owned and subsidized the "reptile
press" of Germany, using it to foment hatred of France'.
You know that at the same time they subsidized some of the
leading Chauvinist newspapers of France, to publish denuncia-
tions and threats against Germany, so that the new war
appropriations might be forced through the Reichstag. Karl
Liebknecht exposed this infamy in Germany, and the ruling
caste of the country never forgave him, and in the crisis of
the late rebellion they found their chance to pay him back.

Among the secret documents made public by the Bolsheviki
were some letters from the Russian Minister to France,

256 The Beass Check

informing his home government of negotiations whereby
Russia was to be allowed to seize Constantinople. He told
how the French newspapers might be used, and pointed out
how Italy did this while she was grabbing Tripoli :

It is of the highest importance to see to it that we have a good

press here As an example of how useful it is to have money to

offer the press .... I know how Tittoni has worked up the leading
French papers most thoroughly and with the niost open hand. The
result is now manifest to all.

We read about such infamies in Europe, and shudder at
them, and congratulate ourselves that our "sweet land of
liberty" is more clean. But put yourself in the place of an
educated Mexican, and see how it appears to him. American
financial promoters bring their wealth to Mexico, and buy the
Mexican government, and obtain ownership of the most
valuable land and oil and minerals of the country. The
Mexican people overthrow this corrupt government, and
attempt to tax these legally stolen prpperties ; but the foreign
governments say that these properties may not be taxed, and
the newspapers owned and published by these foreign interests
carry on for years an elaborate campaign of slanders against
Mexico, to the end that the American people may make war
upon the Mexican people and exploit them. And this is done,
not merely by the Otis paper and the Hearst papers, which
all thinking people know to be corrupt; it is done by papers
like the *'New York Times" and "Tribune" and "Chicago
Tribune," which are considered to be entirely respectable. As
I write, the correspondent of the "New York Tribune" in
Mexico, L. J. de Bekker, resigns, and states as his reason that
his dispatches were suppressed or cut in the "Tribune" office.

And of course, in a campaign of this sort they count upon
the cordial help of the Associated Press. Says the "Heraldo
de Mexico," August 15, 1919 : "We see that the Associated
Press lies with frequency." And you do not have to take this
solely on the word of a Mexican newspaper. The Mexican
minister of foreign relations gives out a letter from the vice-
president of the Mexican Northwestern Railroad, whose offices
are in Toronto, Canada: "I see that the Associated Press
mentions with frequency, in its reports, the name of our com-
pany." He goes on to explain that the Associated Press has
stated that his company complains of the confiscation of lands,

The Wae-Makees 257

whereas these reports are wholly false ; his company has had
no difficulty whatever with the Mexican government. He
says : "It is intolerable that our name should be used." And
also the Associated Press sends out a circumstantial story of
the alleged withdrawal of the Canadian Pearson's from busi-
ness in Mexico. The vice-president of this company issues a
point-blank denial that he ha,s had any difficulty with the
Mexican government. Says Mr. de Bekker, protesting to the
assistant manager of the Associated Press: "It is a most
marked example of the A. P.'s unfairness. And it is a fair
presumption that the A. P. will not carry this denial."

The Mexicans are a backward people, and we complain that
there are bandits among them. But which is worse, the spon-
taneous violence of a primitive people, or the organized and
systematic treachery of a highly developed people? You have
a child ; and suppose that, instead of loving this child, under-
standing and helping it, you do nothing but scold at it, menace
it, and tell falsehoods about it — would you be surprised if the
child now and then kicked your shins ?

It

CHAPTER XL
OWNING THE OWNERS

The second of the methods by which our Journalism is
controlled is by far the most important of all the four. I do
not mean merely that the owners are owned by mortgages, and
such crude financial ties. They are owned by ambition, by
pressure upon their families, by club associations, by gentle-
men's agreements, by the thousand subtle understandings
which make the solidarity of the capitalist class. I have
written elsewhere of labor-leaders, otherwise incorruptible,
who have accepted "the dress-suit bribe." These same bribes
are passed in the business-world, and are the biggest bribes
of all. When you have your shoes shined, you pay the boot-
black ten cents; but can you figure what you are paid for
having your shoes shined? When you buy a new suit of
clothes, you pay the dealer, say, one hundred dollars ; but can
you figure what you are paid for being immaculately dressed,
for having just the right kind of tie, just the right kind of
accent, just the right manner of asserting your own importance
and securing your own place at the banquet-table of Big
Business ?

If you are the publisher of a great newspaper or magazine,
you belong to the ruling-class of your community. You are
invited to a place of prominence on all public occasions ; your
voice is heard whenever you choose to lift it. You may become
a senator like Medill McCormick or Capper of Kansas, who
owns eight newspapers and six magazines; a cabinet-member
like Daniels, or an ambassador like Whitelaw Reid or Walter
Page. You will float upon a wave of prosperity, and in this
prosperity all your family will share; your sons will have
careers open to them, your wife and your daughters will
move in the "best society." All this, of course, provided that
you stand in with the powers that be, and play the game
according to their rules. If by any chance you interfere with
them, if you break their rules, then instantly in a thousand
forms you feel the pressure of their displeasure. You are
"cut" at the clubs, your sons and daughters arc not invited

358

Owning the Ownees 259

to parties — ^you find your domestic happiness has become
dependent upon your converting the whole family to your
strange new revolutionary whim ! And what if your youngest
daughter does not share your enthusiasm for the "great
unwashed"? What if your wife takes the side of her darling?

It is such hidden forces as this which account for much
of the snobbery in American newspapers; the fact that in
every department and in every feature they favor the rich and
powerful, and reveal themselves as priests of the cult of
Mammon. I have watched the great metropolitan dailies, and
those in many smaller cities and towns ; I have yet to see an
American newspaper which does not hold money for its god,
and the local masters of money for demi-gods at the least.
The interests of these Olympian beings, their sports, their
social doings, their political opinions, their comings and goings,
are assumed by the newspapers to be the object of the absorbed
interest of every American who knows how to read.

On every page and in every column of every page the
American newspaper preaches the lesson: "Get money, and
all things else shall be added unto you — especially newspaper
attention." When Mr. John P. Gavit, managing editor of the
"New York Evening Post," wrote to Mr. Melville E. Stone,
general manager of the Associated Press, that I had a reputa-
tion "as an insatiable hunter of personal publicity," what
Mr. Gavit meant was that I was accustomed to demand and
obtain more space in newspapers than the amount of my
worldly possessions entitled me to. Some years ago my wife
went for a visit to her home in the far South, after the unusual
adventure of marrying a Socialist; she met one of her girl-
hood friends, who exclaimed:

"My, but your husband must be a rich man !"

"My husband is a poor man," said M. C. S.

Whereat the girl-friend laughed at her. "I know better,"
said she.

"But it's true," said M. C. S. "He has no money at all;
he never had any."

"Well," said the other, skeptically, "then what are the
papers all the time talking about him for ?"

A large part of what is called "conservatism" in our
Journalism is this instinctive reverence for wealth, as deeply
rooted in every American as respect for a duke in an English
butler. So the average American newspaper editor is a horse

360 The Brass Check

that stands without hitching, and travels without a whip. But
emergencies arise, a fork in the road, a sudden turn, a race
with another vehicle ; and then a driver is needed — and perhaps
also a whip ! I showed you Mr. Ochs pulling the "Metropolis"
story off the front page of the "New York Times" at one
o'clock in the morning. Every Hearst editor has stories to
tell of one-o'clock-in-the-morning visits from the owner, result-
ing in the whole policy of the paper being shifted. And where
the owner is owned, maybe somebody will call him up and lay
down the law ; maybe an agent will be set to keep watch over
his doings, and to become the real master of his paper. I
could name more than one famous editor and publisher who
has been thus turned out of his job, and remains nothing but
a name.

For great "interests" have a way of being wide-awake even
at the late hour when the forms of newspapers close; they
havQja way of knowing what they want, and of getting it. "I
am a great clamorer for dividends," testified old Rockefeller;
and imagine, if you can, a publishing enterprise controlled by
old Rockefeller — how closely the policy of that enterprise
would be attended to! Imagine, if you can, one controlled
by Pierpont Morgan!

It happens that I can tell you about one of these latter.
The story has to do v.'ith one of the most famous publishing-
houses in America, a house which is a national institu-
tion, known to every literate person — ^the ancient house of
"Harper's," which now has the misfortune to have an eight
hundred thousand dollar mortgage reposing in the vaults of
J. P. Morgan & Company. Would you think me absurd if I
should state that the publishing-business of Harper & Bros, is
managed to the minutest detail by this mortgage ?

First, recall to mind "The Money-changers," a novel deal-
ing with the causes of the 1907 panic. The "villain" of this
novel is a certain "Dan Waterman," a great financier who
dominates the life of Wall Street, and who in his relations
to women is an old wild boar. The veil of fiction was thin,
and was meant to be. Every one who knew the great
Metropolis of Mammon would recognize Pierpont Morgan,
the elder, and would know that the picture was true both in
detail and in spirit. Naturally old "J. P." himself would be
furious, and his hired partisans would be looking for a chance
to punish his assailant.

Owning the Owners 261

Very well. Five years passed, and I was editing an
anthology of revolutionary literature. I was quoting authors
from Homer to H.\ G. Wells, several hundred in all, and as
part of the routine of the job, I addressed a long list of authors
and publishing-houses, requesting permission to quote brief
extracts from copyrighted books, due credit of course to be
given. Such quotations are a valuable advertisement for any
book, the more valuable because they are permanent; the
request is a matter of form, and its granting a matter of
course. It proved to be such in the case of all publishing-
houses both in America and in England — all save one, the
house of the eight hundred thousand dollar mortgage! This
house informed me that no book of mine might contain a line
from any book published by them. My reputation was such
that I would injure the value of any book which I quoted!

I am interested in this capitalistic world, and try to find
out as much about it as I can. So I took the trouble to visit
the dingy old building in Franklin Square, and to interview
the up-to-date gentleman who had rendered this unexpected
decision. He was perfectly polite, and I was the same. I
pointed out to him that some of the authors — "his" authors —
were personal friends of mine, and that they themselves
desired to be quoted in my anthology. Mr. Charles Rann
Kennedy, for example, was a Socialist. Mr. William Dean
Howells was one of Harper's own editors; he was in that
very ofifice, and I had in my hand a letter from him, giving
cordial consent to the publication of two passages from "A
Traveller from Altruria" ! Also Mr. H. G. Wells, an English
Socialist, who had honored me with his friendship, had pub-
lished "When the Sleeper Wakes" through "Harper's," and
now requested that I be permitted to quote from this book in
my anthology. Also Mark Twain had honored me with his
friendship; he had visited my home in Bermuda, and had
expressed appreciation of my writings. He was no longer
where I could consult him, in the matter, but I offered evidence
to Messrs. Harper & Bros, proving that he had not regarded
me as a social outcast. But no matter ; the decision stood.

I took the question to the authors themselves, and I am
sorry to have to record that neither Mr. William Dean Howells
nor Mr. Charles Rann Kennedy cared to support a fellow-
Socialist in this controversy with a great capitalist publishing-
house. So it comes about that you will not find Mr. Kennedy

263 The Bkass Check

or Mr. Howells quoted in "The Cry for Justice" ; but you will
find "When the Sleeper Wakes" quoted, the reason being that
Mr. Wells did stand by me. Mr. Wells lives farther away,
and is not so deeply influenced by an eight hundred thousand
dollar mortgage in the vaults of a Wall Street banking-house !

The point of this story is the petty nature of the vengeance
of this mortgage, the trouble it took, the minute detail into
which it was willing to go. The moral for you is just this:
that when you pick up your morning or evening newspaper,
and think you are reading the news of the world, what you are
really reading is a propaganda which has been selected, revised,
and doctored by some power which has a financial interest in
you; and which, for the protecting of that financial interest,
has been willing to take trouble, and to go into the most
minute detail!

You will miss the point of this book if you fail to get
clear that the perversion of news and the betrayal of public
opinion is no haphazard and accidental thing; for twenty-five
years — that is, since the day of Mark Hanna — ^it has been a
thing deliberately planned and systematically carried out, a
science and a technique. High-priced experts devote their lives
to it, they sit in counsel with the masters of industry, and
report on the condition of the public mind, and determine pre-
cisely how this shall be presented and how that shall be sup-
pressed. They create a public psychology, a force in the grip
of which you, their victim, are as helpless as a moth in the
glare of an arc-light. And what is the purpose of it all? One
thing, and one only — ^that the wage-slaves of America shall
continue to believe in and support the system whereby their
bones are picked bare and thrown upon the scrap-heap of the
profit-system.

CHAPTER XLI
THE OWNER IN POLITICS

What counts with newspapers, as everywhere else in the
business world, is not so much the bulk of the wealth as its
activity. Wealth which is invested in government bonds and
farm-mortgages is asleep, and will stay asleep until the profit
system itself is threatened. On the other hand, one or two
hundred thousand dollars which happens to be in the hands
of new men, trying to break into the game, may be exercising
an influence out of all proportion to its amount. Such wealth
may be bidding for a new franchise. It will come to the
newspaper publisher and offer him stock; or it will point out
to him that if the franchise is granted, certain real estate that
he holds will be increased in value; or it will offer to help
nominate him for mayor; or it will point out to him that his
rival newspaper is enlisted on the other side, and is looking
for some unrighteous graft. The story of every newspaper
is a story of such a game of power-politics incessantly going
on. No newspaper can exist without taking part in it, because
every newspaper wields influence, and every newspaper must
cast its decision on every issue that arises. Every paper is
expected to have its candidates for political office ; every paper
is expected to have its political policies, and inevitably in our
system these candidates and these policies are a screen behind
which great financial interests move to their ends.

For example, here is the "Denver Post," as portrayed by,\
Judge Lindsey, founder of the children's court. Lindsey is \
telling in his book, "The Beast," how one of the political |
machines sought to use him as a candidate for Governor : J

A few days later the "Post" endorsed me editorially as a candidate
for Governor, and there was a flurry in the corporation camp. The
paper was no more than on the streets before Mr. Field (telephone

magnate) made a frantic effort to have the edition stopped

and the paper's support reconsidered. But the "Post" had just lost
in a fight with Evans (gas magnate) about a public franchise deal,
and the proprietors were eager for revenge. Their newspaper rivalry
with Senator Patterson made them ambitious to defeat him as leader
of the reform Democrats, by forcing ray nomination in spite of him.
I found myself in the storm-centre of a small political cydone.

263

264 The Bbass Check

You may recall Mr. Bonfils, one of the owners of the
"Denver Post," who "jollied" me over the telephone during
the time of the Colorado coal-strike. Now hear Judge
Lindsey :

When this latter ticket was named I found it largely composed of
Speer corporation Democrats. Mr. Fred G. Bonfils, one of the pro-
prietors of the "Denver Post" (which was still supporting me), assured
me that Speer and his city organization would aid me if I would agree
to lend my name to this ticket.

In short, the corporations being sure of Adams (the opposition
candidate), now wished to make sure of me by tying me to the
candidacy of a lot of corporation tools who would never allow us to
obtain a reform law. I refused to lend my name to any such business,
and I lost thereby the support of the "Post" and the Speer Democrats.

And then, of course, Judge Lindsey was marked for destruc-
tion by the "Post." He tells how a false news dispatch
reported him as saying in a public lecture in the East that
the copper king of the state ought to be hanged. The Denver
Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution declaring Lindsey
"an enemy of the state." Says Lindsey : "The 'Denver Post'
followed the resolution with a demand that I be driven from
town, and stirred up all possible enmity against me as a
'defamer' of my state."

Or take San Francisco. Here is Fremont Older, for
twenty-five years managing editor of the "Bulletin," telling
the story of his life. I shall have more to say about Older
later on; for the present, take one incident from his book.
Older, leading a terrific reform campaign, is after the "man
higher up," and decides that the highest of all is Herrin, head
of the law department of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
"Herrin is the man behind the corruption of our whole state.
Herrin is the man who has broken down the morals of
thousands of our young men, debauched our cities and our
towns and our villages, corrupted our legislatures and courts."
But it appears that Crothers, owner of the "Bulletin," has been
taking money from Herrin in times past.

Crothers became very nervous about it and suggested-several times
to me that he didn't want Herrin attacked. I felt then that he feared
Herrin would expose the Wells money paid the paper, but in spite of
that power which Herrin held over us, I continued to go on with the
campaign against him.

Frequently Crothers would go into the printing office and look

The Owner in Politics 265

over the headlines himself, and if he discovered Herrin's name, would
insist on its being lifted out of the paper, but even with this interference
I managed to keep up the fight.

Finally, he told me flatly that he wanted the attacks on Herrin
stopped,' the criticism of Herrin to cease. I replied frankly that it was
impossible for me to do that, that the entire reportorjal force was
under full headway in the fight, and they were writing, all of them,
from the angle of the paper's policy as it appeared to them, and I
could not go to each man and tell him that he must not criticise Herrin.

"I can't do it, Mr. Crothers, because I am ashamed for you. If
it's to be done, you'll have to do it yourself. I can not."

He did not have the courage to do it, and it was never done. How-
ever, all the time our opponents were trying to reach into the office.
They succeeded in getting the business manager at that time to under-
take to break me down, but I resisted all his efforts. The fight became
more burdensome, because it extended into the very building in which
I worked.

The political campaign waxed warmer, and Crothers
demanded that Older should support Herrin's candidate; but
Older refused.

He replied that he owned the "Bulletin," and that it would support
whomever he chose. I grew very angry and excited and replied, "Yes,
what you say is perfectly true. You do own the 'Bulletin,' but you
don't own me, and I won't stand for Crocker."

I walked out of the room, very angry, determined never to return.
I went to my wife and told her that I was through with the "Bulletin."
She wanted to know the reason and I told her that Crothers had gone
back to his old methods. He was determined to get behind the candi-
date who represented the men we had been fighting, and I could not
bring myself to continue in my position.

Or take St. Paul, Minnesota. Here is the grain country,
entirely possessed by the milling interests, with their allied
railroads and banks. Until the Farmer's Nonpartisan move-
ment arose, the politics and journalism of Minnesota were
exclusively in the hands of these interests. In the "Non-
partisan Leader" for May 27, June 3 and June 10, 1918,
appeared a series of articles by Walter W. Liggett, formerly
exchange editor of the "St. Paul Pioneer Press" and its eve-
ning edition, the "St. Paul Dispatch." Mr. Liggett made a
great number of damaging charges against these newspapers,
and in order to make sure of the facts, I address their
managing editor, inquiring if he has ever published any denial
of the charges, or if he cares to deny them to me. His
answer is :

We never made any reply at all to them Nor do I care.

1866 The Ebass Check

as you suggest, to make any denial to you personally. It seems to me
the record of the "Dispatch" and the "Pioneer Press" is the important
thing, and this is open to anybody who cares to read our files.

The letter concludes by warning me of the risk I shall run
if I reprint "the assertions of a dismissed employe." I reply
to the writer, Mr. H. R. Gait, managing editor of the "Dis-
patch" and the "Pioneer Press," that his letter is unsatis-
factory. The strong point about Mr. ^iggett's three articles
is that they are based upon precisely the thing Mr. Gait
invites — a study of the files of the newspapers. Mr. Liggett
states that certain things are found in these files. I offer to
send Mr. Gait copies of the articles, which he says he does not
possess ; I again invite him to point out to me in detail which
of Mr. Liggett's charges are false. I also ask him why, if
the charges are false, he did not take Mr. Liggett up at the
time, and inflict upon him the legal penalties with which he.
threatens me. I suggest that any jury of Americans will dis-
play curiosity about that point. To which Mr. Gait replies:

I shall be content to advise you again, as I did in my previous
letter, that the articles upon which you have apparently based your
verdict are untruthful in every particular in which they reflect upon
the "Djgnatch" and "Pioneer Press," and that in republishing them
or any part of them, or in repeating any statements reflecting on these
newspapers which may be contained in them, you will not only be pub-
lishing falsehoods, but having been advised in advance that they are
falsehoods, you will publish them maliciously.

Now pray proceed with your indictment of American Journalism
as reported by Mr. Liggett, and do not worry yourself about the
curiosity of any jury so far as we are concerned. At the proper time
•we shall be abundantly able to satisfy any curiosity on this point

Now, when a man comes at me making a face like that, I
have but one impulse in my soul — ^that is, to jtmip into a pair
of seven-league boots, and turn and skedaddle as hard as I
know how to the other side of the world and hide in a coal-bin.
I am not joking; that is really, the way I feel. There is noth-
ing in the world I dread so much as a personal wrangle, and
these fierce and haughty and powerful men throw me into a
tremble of terror. The things I enjoy in this world are my
books and my garden, and rather than go into a jury-room,
and wrangle with fierce and haughty and powerful men, I
♦ould have my eye-teeth pulled out. But then I think, as I
haVe thought many times in my life before, of the millions of

The Owner in Politics 267

pitiful wage-slaves who are exploited by these fierce and
haughty and powerf id men. I think of the millions of honest
and true Americans who swallow the poison that is fed to
them by our capitalist newspapers ; and so I clench my hands
and bite my lips together and turn on the fierce and haughty
anc^ powerful men with a yell of rage. Then a strange and
startling, an almost incredible thing happens — ^the fierce and
haughty and powerful men jump into their seven-league boots,
and turn and skedaddle to the other side of the world and
hide in a coal-bin! <

Why is this? Is it because I am an especially terrifying
person, with an especially terrifying face? No; it is simply
because, in these contests, I have always taken one precaution
at the outset — I have made certain of having the truth on my
side. I have cast in my lot with the truth; whereas these
fierce and haughty and powerful men with whom I enter the
lists of combat have made all their success out of falsehood,
and fear truth as they fear nothing else on God's earth.

Before I go to the bat with Mr. Gait, managing editor of
the "St. Paul Dispatch" and "Pioneer Press," I will point out
one important fact about my life, as follows:

In the course of my twenty years career as an assailant of
special privilege, I have attacked pretty nearly every important
interest in America. The statements I have made, if false,
would have been enough to deprive me of a thousand times all
the property I ever owned, and to have sent me to prison for
a thousand times a normal man's life. I have been called a
liar on many occasions, needless to say ; but never once in all
these twenty years has one of my enemies ventured to bring
me into a court of law, and to submit the issue between us to
a jury of American citizens. Several times they have come
near to doing it. I was told, by a lawyer who was present at
the event, that there was a conference, lasting three days and
a good part of three nights, between Mr. J. Ogden Armour
and his lawyers, in which Mr. Armour insisted upon having
me arrested for criminal libel, and his lawyers insisted that
he could not "stand the gaff." As you have seen in this book,
Mr. William E. Corey threatened to sue me for libel; I am
informed that young Mr. Rockefeller desired ardently to do
it, and -Madame Tingley, the "Purple Mother" of Theosophy,
actually sent her lawyers after me for my jests about her in

268 The Beass Check

"The Profits of Religion." But, if Mr. H. R. Gait actually
files a suit against me, he will be the first of our captains of
privilege who has ventured that far.

Now, to return to the "St. Paul Dispatch" and "Pioneer
Press" : I have not made a detailed study of the files of these
papers, but I have made a study of the Nonpartisan League
movement and its "Nonpartisan Leader," also I have made a
study of Mr. Walter W. Liggett, formerly exchange editor of
the "Dispatch" and the "Pioneer Press." Mr. Liggett assures
me that every statement he makes can be abundantly proven
from the files of the papers, and I believe Mr. Liggett. Accord-
ingly I take the risk of summarizing the statements which Mr.
Liggett published concerning these two papers, and which
these two papers allowed to pass unchallenged. My guess is
that Mr. H. R. Gait will do one of two things : either he will
do what Mr. Ogden Armour did, and what Mr. Corey did,
and what Mr. Rockefeller did, and what Madame Tingley
did — ^that is, nothing. Or else he will do what the Associated
Press did in the case of the "Masses" — ^he will file a suit, or
ask for an indictment, and thus get occasion to publish in his
palpers a high-sounding and dignified statement of his own
righteousness; he will put me to the expense of employing
lawyers and making a thorough study of his files; and then,
when the case comes up, he will drop it, and say not one word
about it in his papers !

Now, what is it that Mr. Liggett has to say? His state-
ments are briefly as follows :

The "St. Paul Dispatch" and "Pioneer Press" were
financed and put on their feet by .a street-car magnate, and
for twenty years, from a generous and pure emotion of grati-
tude, have supported this street-car magnate in all his doings ;
hiding his tax-dodging and his franchise grafting, ridiculing
and misrepresenting his employes when they go on strike.
The papers could probably not be purchased for a million
dollars, yet they pay taxes on less than fifty-seven thousand
dollars. Until quite recently they were charging the city an
illegal price for the publication of city advertisements, and
only quit when an independent citizen forced an exposure.
They have defended the Hill railroad interests systematically ;
they have suppressed news of public agitation against the
packers and the millers, and have editorially defended these
and other profiteers. After borrowing three hundred thousand

The Ownee in Politics 269

dollars from the Capital Trust and Savings Company, they did
their best to start a run on the St. Paul municipal bank, and
only failed because their false statements were promptly
exposed. They have lied systematically about the farmers'
movement, and have refused to publish corrections, even in the
form of paid advertisements. They were ultra-patriotic, and
urged all employers to continue their employes' wages while
the latter were in the army ; but they themselves failed to
follow this advice !

And now come, Mr. Gait, and explain to a jury of Amer-
ican citizens how it happened that these articles, "untruthful
in every particular in which they reflect upon the 'Dispatch'
and the 'Pioneer Press'," were allowed by you to be published
in a paper having two hundred thousand circulation in Minne-
sota and adjoining states, and were left unanswered and un-
challenged by you for a period of fifteen months !

The Nonpartisan League is an issue, not only in Minnesota
and North Dakota, but all over the country where the interests
are in terror of a farmers' revolt. And so the whole power of
the kept press is enlisted to malign it. The League is doing
business through the Scandinavian-American Bank of Fargo,
and the enemies of the League raid this institution, with the
help of subservient public officials, and throw it into the hands
of a receiver. From one end of the country to the other goes
the story of crooked banking by the farmers' party, and is
featured by the capitalist press. The "New York Times" has
several detailed dispatches, also solemn editorials. A week or
two later the Supreme Court of the State denounces the pro-
ceedings as a conspiracy, declares the bank sound, and orders
its return to the owners. The "Times" gives this — not one
line ! Or take the "Kansas City Star," a most completely re-
spectable organ, which features the smash-up of the bank, and
reports the restoration in a tiny item, giving the name of the
bank, but not mentioning it as the League bank — understand-
ing perfectly well that ninety-nine out of a hundred readers
will not make the connection, and will not know that the
League has been vindicated !

And then, a few days later, the American Bar Association
issues a denunciation of the League, declaring it is "pure
Socialism," and Socialism means the "nationalization of wom-
en." The "Chicago Tribune" get's out a big headline :

270 The Bkass Check

"SOCIALISTS HOPE TO COMMUNIZE U. S. GIRLS,
CLAIM."

The "Chicago Tribune" is in politics you see; and like
Richard Croker, it is working for its own pocket all the time.
Let us hear William Marion Reedy, a journalist of forty years'
training :

In Chicago there is the case of two great newspapers, ene of them
Republican and the other Independent, which have been found clearly
guilty of robbery of the school children of that city. Through the con-
nivance of a school board, one of the members of which was an
attorney for one of these newspapers, the land occupied by both these
journals, in the very heart of the business center of Chicago, was
leased to these great institutions for the moulding of public opinion,
on a basis of a site-value absolutely absurd and ridiculous, and upon
terms very much lower than those granted on similar lands to other
lease-holders in the same neighborhood. This favor exacted of a
public body, and at public expense was given solely through fear of
attack by, or desire to stand well with the publications in question.
When there came into power in the school board, under Mayor Dunne,
a number of men who could not be reached by political or other inter-
ests, and these men attempted to set aside the outrageous lease in
question, both these papers began a crusade against the honesty and
intelligence of the school board, and developed the campaign into one
for the election of a mayor who would oust these school board mem-
bers who tried to win back the property for the school children. They
rallied to their support all the corrupt and vicious element of the
Chicago slums, likewise the forces that could be controlled by tlic street
railways and other public service corporations, elected the mayor, and
turned the honest members of the school board out of office. They
have since been reinstated, but not until the corporation Mayor had
appointed a sufficient number of "safe and sane" friends of the powers
that be, to block any effort that might be made by the honest members
to secure from these great publications a just compensation for the use
of the land belonging to the public schools of Illinois and Chicago.

Reedy omits to give us the names of these two Chicago
newspapers. As I am dealing with names in this book, I state
that one of them is the most "respectable" of all Chicago's
newspapers, the "Tribune," which carries on its front page the
legend: "The World's Greatest Newspaper." The other is
the most "liberal" of all Chicago's newspapers, the "Daily
News," owned by Victor F. Lawson, who is generally cited
as the one among the fifteen directors of the Associated Press
who has any trace of progressive sympathy.

CHAPTER XLII

OWNING THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

When it comes to the Associated Press, the clearest state-
ment I have read was made by Charles Edward Russell in
"Pearson's Magazine," April, 1914. Says Russell :

About nine hundred daily newspapers in the United States, com-
prising the great majority of the jburnals of influence and circulation,
receive and print the news dispatches of the Associated Press.

This means that concerning any event of importance an identical
dispatch is printed about fifteen million times and may be read by
thirty million persons.

According to the construction and wording of that dispatch, , so
will be the impression these thirty million persons will receive, and
the opinion they will form and pass along to others.

Here is the most tremendous engine for Power that ever existed
in this world. If you can conceive all that Power ever wielded by the
great autocrats of history, by the Alexanders, Caesars, Tamburlaines,
Kubla Khans and Napoleons, to be massed together into one vast unit
of Power, even this would be less than the Power now wielded by the
Associated Press.

Thought is the ultimate force in the world and here you have an
engine that causes thirty million minds to have the same thought at
the same moment, and nothing on earth can equal the force thus
, generated.

Well-informed men know that the great Controlling Interests have
secured most of the Other sources and engines of Power. They own
or control most of the newspapers, most of the magazines, most of the
pulpits, all of the politicians and most of the public men.

We are asked to believe that they do not own or control the
Associated Press, by far the most desirable and potent of these engines.
We are asked to believe that the character and wording of the dis-
patches upon which depends so much public opinion is never influenced
in behalf of the Controlling Interests. We are asked to believe that
Interests that have absorbed all other such agencies for their benefit
have overlooked this, the most useful and valuable of all. We are
even asked to believe that, although the Associated Press is a mutual
concern, owned by the newspapers, and although these newspapers
that own it are in turn owned by the Controlling Interests, the Con-
trolling Interests do not own, control or influence the Associated Press,
which goes its immaculate vfay, furnishing impartial and unbiased news
to the partial and biased journals that own it.

That is to say that when you buy a house you "do not buy its
foundations.

273 The Bsass Check

The point about the Associated Press upon which it lays
greatest stress, and which it never fails to bring forward in
defending itself, is that it is a "mutual" corporation; it is
owned and controlled by the many hundreds of newspapers
which use its services. In La Follette's magazine during the
year 1909 there appeared a series of articles on the Associated
Press by William Kittle. Mr. Kittle showed, taking the figures
of the year 1909, that the seven hundred newspapers which
then used the service had less than one-seventh of the voting
control of the organization. The rest of the votes were cast
on bonds which had been sold to certain of the members.
These bonds represented a voting-strength of four thousand,
eight hundred and ninety as against seven hundred and
seventy-five votes of the member newspapers. The total of
fifty-six hundred and sixty-five votes elected the board of
directors, and this board, having power to issue new bonds at
any time, could keep its control absolute. Could anyone
imagine a smoother scheme for holding a corporation in bond-
age? And then fancy Melville E. Stone coming before the
public and making this statement concerning his organization :

It is purely mutual in its character, and in this respect is unique.
All of the other news-supplying agencies of the world are proprietary
concerns. It issues no stock, makes no profit, and declares no dividend.
It does not sell news to any one. It is a clearing-house for the inter-
change of news among its members only.

I wrote to Mr. Stone, explaining that I was discussing his
organization in my book, and wished to be scrupulously fair
in every statement I made ; would Mr. Stone tell me the present
status of these bonds and their votes? Mr. Stone delayed for
some time to answer, and when he did so, explained the delay :

First, because I have been taking a vacation, and have had no
leisure to think of you, and second, because in the slight reading I
have given to your publications, I was led to believe that any failure
to acquaint yourself with the facts of a matter would in no wise
embarrass you in presenting your case.

My answer was that, curiously enough, this was precisely
the impression I had formed of Mr. Stone's organization ; the
only difference being that whereas he admitted having given
only a slight reading to my publications, I had had intimate
first-hand experience with his organization over a period of
fifteen or twenty years.

Owning the Associated Pbess 273

However, Mr. Stone consented to give me a list of the
present bond-holders ; also his explanation of the matter :

In the organization of the Associated Press in 1900 it was neces-
sary to provide a certain sura to buy fixtures, etc., and certain first
mortgage bonds were issued and sold to the members, the proceeds
being applied in the way indicated. The Charter authorized an issuance
of $150,000. But this sum was found to be unnecessary. The actual
issue_ was $131,425. This has since been reduced by redemption in
certain cases so that today there is outstanding $113,125. Under the
law of New York, holders of first mortgage bonds are entitled to vote
for Directors in proportion to their holdings. They have no right to
vote upon bonds on any other matter in the conduct of the business.

Many times, in the course of my experiences as a muck-
raker, I have had great captains of privilege endeavor to
impose upon my intelligence; but I cannot recall having ever
been offered so childish a pretext as I am here offered by Mr.
Stone. I am asked to believe that in the nineteen years of its
history, this enormous concern has been able to pay off less
than twenty thousand dollars of the debt incurred for its office
furniture ! I am asked to believe that these bond-holders have
votes because the law requires them to have votes; and that
never once has it occurred to the shrewd gentlemen who
manage the Associated Press that by the simple device of
remaining in debt for their office furniture, they can keep their
organization permanently and irrevocably in the control of
the big reactionary newspapers of the country 1

Will Irwin, writing in "Harper's Weekly" five years ago,
speaks of the "ring of old, Tory, forty-one vote papers in
control" of the Associated Press. It appears that the bonds
of the organization are for twenty-five dollars each, and when
the association was formed, the big insiders each took one
thousand dollars worth — ^giving them forty votes, with one
additional vote as member.

I look down the list which Mr. Stone sends me, and I see
that these "forty-one vote papers" include all of the biggest
reactionary sheets in America. One after another I look for
those which I have pilloried in this book — they are all here !
The "Los Angeles Times" is here, and de Young's "San Fran-
cisco Chronicle," and the "San Francisco Bulletin," of the
itching palm, and the "San Francisco Examiner," which sent
out my Shredded Wheat story, and the "Sacramento Union,"
which was sold to the Calkins syndicate. Here is the "Pueblo
Chieftain," which circulated the foul slanders about Judge

18

274 The Bbass Check

Lindsey and the miners' wives. Here is the "Baltimore News"
of Munsey, the stock-gambler. Here is the "Washington
Post," which, as I shall narrate, had a typewritten copy of a
speech by Albert Williams, and deliberately made up false
quotations. Here is the "Chicago Tribune," which slandered
Henry Ford, and the "Chicago Daily News," which, with the
"Tribune," robs the Chicago school-children. Here is the
"Cincinnati Times- Star," which set out to fight Boss Cox,
and didn't. Here is the "Boston Herald," which, I shall
show you, refused President Wilson's speech as an adver-
tisement, and the "Boston Traveller," which lied about my
magazine. Here is the "Kansas City Star," which hounded
Mrs. Stokes to jail, and the "St. Paul Dispatch," whose mis-
deeds I have just listed. Here is the "Oil City Derrick/'
owned by Standard Oil, and the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer,"
whose bonds were found in the vaults of the Great Northern
Railroad. Here is the "Portland Oregonian," which exists
for large-scale capital, and the "Milwaukee Sentinel," owned
by Pfister, who owns most of Milwaukee. Here is the "New
York Herald," which suppressed my Packingtown story, and
paid me damages for the Tarrytown libel. Here is the "New
York Evening Post," which failed to expose the Associated
Press, and the "New York World," which favors twenty-cent
meals for department-store girls; here is the "New York
Tribune," which lied about the Socialist state legislators, and
the "New York Times," which has lied about me so many
times that I can't count them.

Such are the newspapers which control the Associated
Press: a "stand-pat" machine, precisely like the Aldrich
machine which once controlled the United States Senate, and
the Cannon machine which once controlled the House. Mr.
Stone does his best to persuade me that in the maintenance of
this control the bonds have not played any part. He writes:

Since the organization, over one hundred elections of directors
have taken place. In one case only, I believe, was the result different
from what it would have been if no votes had been cast upon the bonds.

And here again Mr. Stone is treating me as a child. Of
the total bonds the big insiders control nine-tenths. Of the
total number of votes cast at elections, they control five-sixths.
A successful rebellion is thus obviously impossible; and the
penalty of an unsuccessful rebellion, as I shall presently show.

Owning the Associated Pbess !875

is annihilation; yet Mr. Stone feels virtuous because nobody
rebels ! Let Mr. Stone pay off his debts for ofHce furniture,
and place all the nine-hundred-odd members of the Associated
Press on an equality as regards votes, and then let him boast
that the bonds have no effect upon elections !

Ten years ago Mr. Kittle made a study of the fifteen
directors of the Associated Press. They were all publishers
of large newspapers, and from these newspapers could be
judged. Just one was a "liberal," Nelson, of the "Kansas
City Star" — and he has since died. All the other fourteen
were classified as "conservative or ultra-conservative." Said
Mr. Kittle :

The other fourteen papers are huge commercial ventures, con-
nected by advertising and in other ways with banks, trust companies,
railway and city utility companies, department-stores and manufactur-
ing enterprises. They reflect the system which supports them.

There have been many changes of personality in the Asso-
ciated Press in the last ten years, but there has been no change
in this respect ; the statement of Mr. Kittle's remains the truth
about the fifteen directors. And likewise there has been no
change in the policy of the organization, as Mr. Kittle
reported it:

The dispatches themselves disclose the attitude of the management.
They give scant courtesy to movements for constructive legislation in
the public interest. The reports, scores of which have been examined,
are meager, fragmentary, isolated. Every time Tom Johnson was
successful in more than fifty injunction suits, the general public in
other states heard little or nothing of it. When an election recently
went against him, everybody heard of the "failure" of municipal
ownership. When La FoUette for five years, by a continuous contest,
was placing law after law on the statute-books, the matter was ignored
or briefly reported in distant states ; and temporary defeats were given
wide publicity. When Kansas, in 1908, rejected a conservative and
elected a progressive United States Senator, the general public at a
distance from that state did not know the real issue involved. For
more than two years, there has been a strong movement in California
against the rule of that state by special and corrupt interests, but
that fact, merely as news, has never reached the general public in the
East. The prosecution of oflEenders in San Francisco has only been a
part of the wider movement in California. The strong movement in
New Hampshire, headed by Winston Churchill, to free that state from
the grasp of the Boston and Maine Railway Company and the move-
ment in New Jersey led by Everett Colby, which resulted in the defeat
of Senator Dryden, the president of the Prudential Insurance Company,
have not been given to the people adequately as matters of news.

276 The Beass Check

And this is the testimony of every independent-minded
newspaper man with whom I have talked about the Associated
Press. Will Irwin, writing in "Harper's Weekly," shows how
the old reactionary forces shape the policy of the organization.
"The subordinates have drifted inevitably toward the point
of view held by their masters." And again, of the average
Associated Press correspondent: "A movement in stocks is
to him news — big news. Wide-spread industrial misery in a
mining camp is scarcely news at all." At a conference at
the University of Wisconsin, the editor of the "Madison
Democrat" stated that he had been a correspondent of the
Associated Press for many years, and had never been asked
"to suppress news or to color news in any way whatever."
Reply was made by A. M. Simons: "I have had many re-
porters working under me, and every one of you know that
you will not have a reporter on your paper who cannot 'catch
policy' in two weeks."

The general manager of the Associated Press makes public
boast of the high character of his employes. "Throughout
the profession, employment in its service is regarded as an
evidence of character and reliability." Such is the glittering
generality ; but investigate a little, and you find one Associated
Press correspondent, Calvin F. Young, of Charleston, West
Virginia, engaged in sending strike-news to his organization,
and at the same time in the pay of the mine-owners, collecting
affidavits against the strikers. You find a second Associated
Press correspondent, E. Wentworth Prescott, of Boston, dip-
ping into the slush funds of the New Haven Railroad, and
giving an explanation of his services, so lacking in plausibility
that Interstate Commerce Commissioner Anderson remarks:
"I don't see why they couldn't just as well have hired you to
count the telegraph poles on the street !"

The Associated Press is probably the most iron-clad
monopoly in America. It was organized originally as a cor-
poration under the laws of Illinois, but the Illinois courts
declared it a monopoly, so it moved out of Illinois, and reor-
ganized itself as a "membership corporation," thus evading the
law. Today, if you wish to start a morning newspaper in the
village of Corn Center, Kansas, you may get an Associated
Press franchise; but if you want to start one in any city or
town within circulating distance of the big "forty-one-vote"

Owning the Associated Press 277

insiders, you might as well apply for a flying-machine to visit
the moon. The members of the Associated Press have what
is called "the right of protest" — ^that is, they can object to new
franchises being issued ; and this power they use ruthlessly to
maintain their monopoly. Says Will Irwin :

To the best of my knowledge, only two or three new franchises
have ever been granted over the right of protest — and those after a
terrible fight. Few, indeed, have had the hardihood to apply. When
such an application comes up in the annual meeting, the members
shake with laughter as they shout out a unanimous "No !" For owing
to the exclusive terms of the charter, an Associated Press franchise
to a metropolitan newspaper is worth from fifty thousand dollars to
two hundred thousand dollars. Abolish the exclusive feature, throw
the Association open to all, and you wipe out these values. The pub-
lishers are taking no chances with a precedent so dangerous.

A few years ago the editor of the "News" of Santa Cruz,
California, applied for the Associated Press franchise for his
paper. The San Francisco manager of the Associated Press
refused it, and gave this explanation, according to a statement
by the editor of the "News" : /

The San Francisco daily papers owned all the Associated Press
franchises for that city, and they also controlled a vast outlying terri-
tory, including Santa Cruz, eighty miles away, and would refuse to
permit Associated Press dispatches to be printed by me or anyone else
in Santa Cruz.

There is only one way to get by this barrier, and that is
to pay the price. Joseph A. Scranton, proprietor of the
"Scranton Republican," forced a man who wished to start
another newspaper in Scranton to pay him ten thousand dollars
before he could have the Associated Press franchise for that
small city. When the "San Francisco Globe" A^ranted the
Associated Press franchise, it had to buy the "San Francisco
Post" at the price of a hundred and ten thousand dollars.
Admittedly the "Post" had no value, it was not a competitor
in any sense ; the price paid was for the franchise alone — and
it was stated by the "San Francisco Star" that the greater part
of the value consisted in a lower telegraph rate, a special
privilege granted by the Western Union telegraph company
to the Associated Press.

Also the Associated Press, bemg a membership corporation
or club, possesses the legal right to expel and to discipline its
members. This right it has specifically asserted in its charter ;

278 The Bbass Check

it may expel a member "for any conduct on his part, or on the
part of anyone in his employ or connected with his newspaper,
which in its absolute discretion it shall deem of such a char-
acter as to be prejudicial to the welfare and interest of the
corporation and its members, or to justify such expulsion.
The action of the members of the corporation in such regard
shall be final, and there shall be no right of appeal or review
of such action."

This, you perceive, is power to destroy any newspaper
overnight. Not merely may a franchise worth two hundred
thousand dollars be wiped out at the whim of the little con-
trolling oligarchy; the entire value of the newspaper may be
destroyed ; for of course a big morning newspaper cannot exist
without its franchise. The masters of the "A. P." hold this
whip over the head of every member; and Will Irwin tells
what use they make of it :

Two or three liberal publishers have expressed to me, after mutual
pledges of confidence, their opinion of the "A. P. cinch." And they
have finished by saying something like this :

"But for heaven's sake don't quote me in print, and don't tell
anyone I've said this. The fine for such an ofifense runs from fifty
thousand dollars up !"

In my story of the Colorado coal-strike, I showed you the
"A. P." suppressing news, and the newspapers of the country,
without one single exception, keeping silence about it. I
showed you one bold managing editor promising to tell the
truth, and then suddenly stricken dumb, and not carrying out
his promise. Now I have shown you the meaning of the
phenomenon.

And yet, in spite of everything, members of the Asso-
ciated Press do "kick"; they "kick" repeatedly, and word of
their "kicks" gets out. Fremont Older complained repeatedly,
and so did Van Valkenburg, of the "Philadelphia North
American." Herman Ridder complained— as Mr. Stone him-
self admitted when a Senate committee pinned him down. I
quote a significant colloquy from a Senate "lobby" investiga-
tion:

Senator LaFollette: Mr. Stone, has_ there ever been any com-
plaint made by members of your association of unfairness on the
part of the manager or the management of the Association regard-
ing news?

Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir. There is hardly —

Owning the Associated Press 379

Senator LaFolIette: Have the members of your association or
any member of your association complained that you suppressed hn-
portant news?

Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir, we have had that for years.

Senator LaFolIette: That you have colored news?

Mr. Stone: No, sir, I do not think anybody has ever said that
Well, I don't know about that. We have had complaints on all sides.

This is the Committee on Finance of the United States
Senate, holding hearings on the subject of reciprocity with
Canada (Senate Document 56, Sixty-second Congress, First
Session, Vol. II). The newspapers of the country want a
clause by' which they can get free paper-pulp from Canada;
so the Associated Press sends out full reports of the testimony
of newspaper publishers before the Senate Committee. But
when certain farmers appear and oppose the reciprocity
scheme — listen to Senator McCumber, questioning Herman
Ridder, a director of the Associated Press :

How do you account for the fact, which every senator here
must have noticed, that while these farmers were giving their testi- -
mony the reporters of the Associated Press leaned back in their chairs
day after day scarcely taking a note, and that the moment any man
came forward to give testimony in favor of this bill every pencil
came out and every pad was on the table and all of our good friends
were studiously at work? And that has been the case all through
these hearings.

And again:

It is a notorious fact that we have been able to get but one side
of the question before the public so far as these hearings are con-
cerned.

Also, consider the testimony brought out by the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary (sixty-third Congress, First Ses-
sion, Senate Resolution 93, Vol. II). It appears that the
head of the Sugar Trust had issued a long statement, advocat-
ing free raw sugar, and this press-agent material had been
sent out in full by the Associated Press. The senators ques-
tion Melville E. Stone, to find out why, and they cannot even
get the name of the Associated Press correspondent who
handled the material! It is brought out that the beet sugar
interests of the West, which are fighting the Sugar Trust,
have made bitter complaint concerning this article, and have
been to the head of the Denver office of the Associated Press
to denia°d that their side too shall be given a hearing. You

280 The Beass Check

remember how I went to the head of the Denver office of the
Associated Press, to try to get a hearing for my side — ^the
people's side — and how completely I failed? Needless to say,
it is different when a representative of Big Business makes
complaint; this gentleman obtains the promise of the Asso-
ciated Press to send out six hundred and fifty words, and
later on Mr. Stone is found writing to his Denver manager :

Personally I am inclined to discourage the carrying of long state-
ments of a controversial nature, but inasmuch as we carried Mr.
Arbuckle's statement rather fully, my judgment is that we might have
handled a little more of Mr. Hamlin's provided it was prepared as
briefly as our copy here indicates.

Here, you see, we are close to the heart of a grave prob-
lem. Here are enormous sums of "easy money" in sight. If
the managers and district managers and correspondents of
our great press associations all sternly decline to touch this
"easy money," they are all, all honorable men; also, they are
different from most other men in most other branches of
Big Business in America.

,Do they all decline? I sincerely hope so. But I recall
how Max Eastman, in the "Masses" for July, 1913, made very
specific charges against the Associated Press, which thereupon
caused Eastman's arrest for criminal libel. The indictment
brought by the Grand Jury against Eastman and Art Young
quotes a paragraph from the offending editorial, as follows :

I am told that every trust is to be encouraged to live its life
and grow to such proportions that it may and must be taken over
by the working public. But one trust that I find it impossible to
encourage is this Truth Trust, the Associated Press. So long as the
substance of current history continues to be held in cold storage,
adulterated, colored with poisonous intentions, and sold to the highest
bidder to suit his private purposes, there is small hope that even the
free and the intelligent will take the side of justice in the struggle
that is before us.

The indictment goes on to interpret the above :

Meaning and intending thereby that the said corporation in-
tentionally withheld, suppressed and concealed from its members
information of important items of news and intelligence and inten-
tionally supplied its members with information that was untruthful,!
biased, inaccurate and incomplete, and that the said corporation for-
and in consideration of moneys paid to it intentionally supplied to
its members misinformation concerning happenings and events that
constituted the news and intelligence of the day.

Owning the Associated Peess 281

Then the indictment quotes another paragraph from the
editorial :

The representative of the Associated Press was an officer in that
military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek miners into the peni-
tentiary in violation of their constitutional liberties; and tiiis fact is
even more significant and more serious than the abrogation of those
liberties. It shows that the one thing which all tribes and nations
in time have held sacred — the body of Truth — is for sale to organized
capital in the United States.

The indictment interprets this as follows :

Meaning and intending^ thereby that the said corporation was
willing to and did in consideration of money paid ' to it knowingly
supply_ to its members information of such untruthful, biased and
prejudiced nature and so distorted and incomplete as the person pay-
ing such money might desire.

This indictment was widely heralded in the press, and
everybody thought they were going to get the truth about the
Associated Press at last. But when the case was ready for
trial, it was mysteriously dropped. For six years I have won-
dered why it was dropped. I cannot say now that I know;
but I have just met Max Eastman, and heard from his lips
the story of a certain eminent corporation lawyer in New
York, who on several occasions has "kicked over the traces"
of Big Business. This man knows a great deal about the
Associated Press, and he came forward in this "Masses" case,
offering to assist the defense, and to conduct the trial. It was
his plan to summon the heads of high finance in New York,
beginning with Pierpont Morgan, and to question them as to
the precise details of their relationship to the Associated Press !
Aren't you sorry that trial didn't come off? And don't you
think it a very serious matter that the Associated Press did
not face this precise and definite issue, which it had so publicly
raised ? Let me speak for myself : If any man accused me in
the specific and damaging way above quoted, I would consider
that my time, my money, my energy, my very life must be
called to the task of vindicating my honor. And if, instead of
fighting, I put my tail between my legs and sneaked away from
the scene, I would expect men to conclude that there was some
guilt upon my conscience.

CHAPTER XLIII
THE OWNER AND HIS ADVERTISERS

The third method by which the "kept" press is kept is
the method of the advertising subsidy. This is the "legiti-
mate" graft of newspapers and magazines, the main pipe-
line whereby Big Business feeds its journalistic parasites.
Financially speaking, our big newspapers and popular maga-
zines are today more dependent upon their advertisers than
they are upon their readers ; it is not a cynicism, but the state-
ment of a business fact, that a newspaper or popular magazine
is a device for submitting competitive advertising to the public,
the reading-matter being bait to bring the public to the hook.

And of course the old saying holds, that "he who pays the
piper calls the tune." The extent to which the bait used in
the game of journalistic angling is selected and treated by the
business fishermen, is a subject which might occupy a volume
by itself. Not merely is there general control of the spirit and
tone of the paper ; there is control in minute details, sometimes
grotesque. For example, Arthur Brisbane wrote an article on
dietetics, deploring the use of package cereals. The advertis-
ing men of the "Evening Journal" came to him, tearing their
hair; he had knocked off a hundred thousand dollars a year
from the "Journal's" income! Brisbane wrote an editorial
pointing out that stiff hats caused baldness, and the "Journal"
office was besieged by the hat-dealers who advertised in the
paper. Brisbane %vent to Europe and wrote editorials support-
ing a municipal subway. Said the advertising man: "Don't

you know that Mr. at Wanamaker's is dead against that

sort of thing?"

Max Sherover, in his excellent little pamphlet, "Fakes in
American Journalism," writes :

The editor of a New York paper wrote an instructire editorial oa
the right kind of shoes to wear. The editorial was not inspired by
any advertiser. It was simply the result of the editor's study and
investigation of the problem of footwear. He advised against the
wearing of the shoe with the curved point and urged in favor of the
square-toed shoe. One of the big advertisers somehow got wind of
the shoe-editorial that was intended to appear on the following' day.

282

The Owner and His Adveetisers 283

It so happened that this storekeeper had a shoe-sale scheduled for the
following week. He called up the business manager of the newspaper
on the 'phone. After five minutes of conversation the editorial went
to the waste-basket.

And if the advertisers censor the general ideas, needless to
say they censor news about themselves. Henry Siegel owned
a department-store in New York ; his wife divorced him, and
nothing about it appeared in the New York papers — that is,
not until after the department-store failed! Our great
metropolitan dailies are, as you know, strong protectors of the
sanctity of the home ; you saw how they treated Upton Sinclair,
when he got tied up in the divorce-courts ; you saw how they
treated Gorky and Herron. But how about the late C. W.
Post, of "Postum" fame, when he decided to divorce his wife
and marry his stenographer ? Hardly a line in the newspapers
throughout the country !

I have told how the Philadelphia newspapers suppressed the
suicide of one of the Gimbel brothers. This same firm has a
store in Milwaukee, and I have before me a letter from the
District Attorney of Milwaukee County, setting forth what
happened when the vice-president of this firm was indicted for
bribing an alderman :

Representatives of Gimbel Brothers requested, as I am credibly
informed, the newspapers in which their commercial advertisements
appeared to suppress the facts connected with the proceedings of
Mr. Hamburger's trial. With two exceptions, so insignificant as to
justify their being entirely ignored, the English press did so. The five
daily English newspapers published no account whatever of the trial,
which occupied about one week and disclosed sensational matter which
would have undoubtedly been published broadcast in an ordinary case.
Some of these papers printed a very brief notice at the time the case
was called, stating this fact, but not all of them did even this

much It was shown that all the books of account of the Gimbel

Brothers, together with their correspondence and legal documents
pertaining to the transaction in connection with which the bribery was
alleged were burned under the direction of the defendant immediately
after it was brought to his attention that the grand jury which indicted
him was in session and about to investigate this case. _ This destruction
of the books and documents occurred within the period of the statute
of limitation, and less than three years after some of the entries had
been made in them. The only explanation for this singular proceeding
given by defendant or his business associates was that they lacked
room in their vault and found it necessary to do away with papers,
books and documents which they felt they could dispense with. I
ip«ntion this particular line of evidence because I am satisfied that if
svtdi a showing had been made in an ordinary case of bribery the facts

1384 The Beass Check

disclosed would have been given the widest publicity by the daily press.
That the proceedings of this trial were suppressed by the English
papers of this city for commercial reasons which appealed to their
advertising department is unquestioned. Every newspaper man of my
acquaintance to whom I have mentioned the matter has admitted the
fact and deplored it.

In the same way, when Wanamaker's was detected violating
the customs laws, only one Philadelphia newspaper reported the
circumstances. There was organized a league for honest adver-
tising, and you might have thought that such a league would
have appealed to our- highly moral newspapers ; but when this
league prosecuted a merchant in New York for selling furs
under false names, not one newspaper mentioned the circum-
stances. This merchant was convicted, and again not one New
York newspaper mentioned it. In Chicago various firms were
prosecuted for misbranding goods, and the local papers sup-
pressed the news. In Milwaukee four firms were prosecuted
for selling a potted cheese doped with chemicals, and the news-
papers withheld the names of the firms. Says Will Irwin : "I
have never seen a story of a shop-lifting case in which the
name of the store was mentioned." Also he makes the follow-
ing statement concerning the most august of the Brahmin
newspapers of New England :

The "Boston Evening Transcript" published in its issue of April
8th the fact that a workman had fallen from a tree, that an aged
pauper had been found dead in bed, that the Harvard Shooting Club
was about to hold a meet, but not the fact that "Harvard Beer," known
to every consumer of malt liquors in Massachusetts, was in peril of
the law for adulteration. Neither was the fact noted on Monday,
April 10. But on Tuesday, April 11, "Harvard Beer— 1,000 pure"
appeared in the pages of the "Transcript" — as a half-page adver-
tisement !

Every newspaper editor feels this pressure — even though he
feels it only in his imagination. A horse that travels in harness
does so, not because he likes to travel, but because he carries
in his subconsciousness the memory of the whip and the bit
which "broke" him in the days of his wild youth. And if, by
any chance, he forgets this whip and bit, he is quickly reminded.
William Winter, a dramatic critic who had served the "New
York Tribune" for forty-four years, was forced to resign
because his reviews of plays injured the advertising business of
the "Tribune." Certain managers were making money out of
producing indecent plays ; Mr. Winter rebuked these plays, the

The Owner and His Advertisers 283

advertisers protested to the "Tribune," and the managing editor
of the "Tribune" censored Mr. Winter's reviews. During the
controversy, Mr. Winter wrote to the managing editor that he
had desired to injure the business of the producers of indecent
plays ; to which the managing editor replied : "My instructions
with regard to that page are that the articles are not to be
framed with any such purpose."

The same thing happened to Walter Pritchard Eaton,
dramatic critic of the "New York Sun." I learned of it just
as my book was going to press, and wired Mr. Eaton for the
facts. Here is his answer:

Syndicate withdrew ads from "Sun" after my review of Soul Kiss,
demanding my discharge. Six months later I was fired, no cause
given. Next Sunday all ads back in paper. No actual proof but
conclusion pretty plain.

Everywhere in the world of Journalism, high and low, you
see this power of the advertiser. I live in the beautiful million-
aire city of Pasadena, and every afternoon I get my news of
the world from a local paper, which is in some ways among
the best. It publishes no scare headlines, and practically no
scandal; but in its attitude toward its big commercial adver-
tisers, the attitude of this newspaper is abject. There is a page
of moving-picture advertisements, and side by side are columns
of "write-tips" of these plays. Nine out of ten of these plays
are unspeakable trash, but from the notices you would think
that a new era of art was dawning upon Pasadena. All this is
"dope," sent out by the moving-picture exploiters ; such a thing
as an independent and educative review of a moving-picture is
not conceivable in my local newspaper. And it is the same with
"write-ups" of bargain-sales, and new openings of department-
stores. It is the same with the chain of leisure-class hotels ; the
man who manages and finances these hotels is a local god, and
everything he does and says takes the top of the column.

This system of publicity in return for advertising is a funda-
mentally dishonest one, but it is inseparable from the business
of publishing news for profit, and the legitimate and the
illegitimate shade into one another so gradually that it would
be hard for an honest editor to know where to draw the line.
The rule will differ with every newspaper; it may differ with
every editor and every mood of every editor. I have made a
little study of it with my local newspaper, and had some

386 The Brass Check

amusing experiences. Belonging to the Socialist local in
Pasadena, I several times had occasion to solicit publicity for
Socialist meetings. Being a naturally polite person, I did not
go to the editor and say, "I'll buy ten dollars worth of adver-
tising space, if you'll publish a quarter of a column of news
about my radical venture." What I did was to insert the
advertisement, and then send to the editor, the matter I wanted
published, and it was published. So I thought this was a regu-
lar rule ; but some time later, when the labor-men of Pasadena
started a co-operative store, and I became vice-president of
the enterprise, I inserted an advertisement of the store, and
again presented my "copy" to the newspaper, and I did not
get so rnuch space. ,The advertising manager of the newspaper
explained to the manager of the store that his paper could not
boost a co-operative store, because the local merchants which
supplied the bulk of its advertising were hostile to such an
enterprise !

At the last election the people of California had to decide
upon a social insurance measure, and a friend of mine wrote
an article in favor of this measure, and could not get it pub-
lished. I suggested that she publish it as an advertisement, but
the "Pasadena Star-News" refused it, even in that form, and
explained to me the reason — ^that the lady had referred to
Christian Science as "a foolish belief"! The partisans of
Christian Science are accustomed to rent a page in this paper
every now and then, and to have their foolishness published
without question.

A still stranger experience befell a gentleman in Boston,
Sinclair Kennedy by name. In April, 1918, Mr. Kennedy
learned that his state was falling far behind in the purchase
of war savings and thrift stamps, and by way of helping his
government in its thrift campaign, he prepared an advertise-
ment consisting of three quotations, the first from a speech
by President Wilson, the second from a speech by the Secre-
tary of the Treasiiry, and the third from a speech by the
Chairman of the National War Savings Committee: all three
of the quotations urging^ that people should purchase only
necessities, so that the energies of the country might go to
war-production. The "Boston Herald and Journal" contracted
to publish this advertisement in four issues ; it published it in
two issues, and then refused to publish it again, and paid to
Mr. Kennedy the sum of five hundred dollars damages for

The Ownee and His Advertisebs 38T

breach of contract. The "Boston. Post" refused to publish the
advertisement at all, its manager giving the reason that it was
"contrary to public policy"! I have read of many Socialists
being sent to jail upon a charge of interfering with the govern-
ment's war activities, but if the manager of the "Boston Post"
■was sent to jail, the other newspapers did not report it !

What this amounts to is a censorship of the small and
occasional advertisers by the large and permanent ones; this
censorship is common, and sometimes it is made to wear the
aspect of virtue. The best-paying advertisements are those of
automobiles and other leisure-class luxuries; as such adver-
tisers will not publish alongside cheap patent medicine fakes,
publications like "Collier's" and the "Outlook" make a boast
of censoring their advertisements. But when it comes to pro-
tecting their high-priced advertisers, these publications are, as
I have shown, every bit as unscrupulous as the sellers of
cancer-cures and headache-powders. I, who wish to attack
these high-priced advertisers, am forced to publish what I
have to say in a paper which can only exist by publishing the
advertisements of cancer-cures and headache-powders. This
is very humiliating, but what can I do? Stop writing? If I
could have my way, of course, I would write for a publication
having a large circulation and publishing honest reading matter
and honest advertising matter. But no such publication exists ;
and I have to decide the question, which does the least harm,
a publication with honest advertising matter and dishonest
reading matter, or a publication with honest reading matter
and dishonest advertising matter.

Also, of course, there will be censorship of advertisements
containing news. If the newspaper is suppressing certain facts,
it will not permit you to make known these facts, even for
money. The "Los Angeles Times," although it bitterly opposed
single tax, was willing to take my money for an advertisement
in favor of single tax; but the "Times" would not take my
money for an advertisement i-eporting a meeting at which the
truth about Russia was told. The "Times" would not sell me
space to make known that the Socialists of the city had chal-
lenged the Superintendent of Schools to debate the truth of
certain false statements which he had made about Russia.

In Louisville is the "People's Qiurch," conducted by an
independent clergyman in a theatre, and attended by one or
two thousand people every Sunday. The "Louisville Courier-

288 The Beass Check

Journal" and its evening edition, the "Times," have not con-
tented themselves with suppressing all news about these
meetings for several years; they have also refused all adver-
tisements of this "People's Church." (Since this was written
they have put the "People's Church" out of business!)

Some fifteen years ago the most important news being put
before the American people was in the form of paid adver-
tisements signed by Thomas W. Lawson. The "New York
Times" refused to publish these advertisements, and tens of
thousands of New Yorkers, myself among them, were obliged
to buy other newspapers in consequence. It cost the "Times"
large sums of money to refuse these Lawson broad-sides, but
the "Times" made a virtue of it, because the broad-sides
threatened the entire profit system, without which the "Times"
could not exist. In the same way the newspapers of Balti-
more and Boston refused advertisements of a magazine run
by Thomas E. Watson in Georgia, on the ground that he was
publishing in his magazine articles attacking foreign missions.
If you do not believe that interests like this exercise pressure
upon newspapers, just try to publish in any capitalist news-
paper an advertisement of a book or pamphlet attacking the
Roman Catholic Church!

Here in Los Angeles I know a man who set himself up in
business as a land-appraiser, and interfered with the leading
industry of our community, which is selling real estate to
"come ons" from the East. He advised one client that some
land in Imperial Valley was worthless, because it contained
nearly three per cent of alkali ; and this judgment was later
vindicated by a report of the U. S. Bureau of Soils, which I
have read. But it happened that this land lay perilously near
to the tracts of a great land company, in which the heads of
Los Angeles newspapers are interested. The three leading
newspapers of Los Angeles broke their contracts with this
land-appraiser, threw out his "copy" and ruined his business,
and now he is working as a cowboy in the "movies." And if
you think that the power of the real estate sharks is confined
to the places where they prey, consider the experience of Rob
Wagner, who wrote two articles about the Southern California
land-sharks for the "Saturday Evening Post." The first arti-
cle, being full of fun, a farce-comedy, was accepted and paid
for at once ; the second, giving the real story, and being full of
meat, was turned down.

CHAPTER XLIV
THE ADVERTISING BOYCOTT

If the newspaper fails to protect its big advertisers, the big
advertisers will get busy and protect themselves. This happens
every now and then, and every newspaper editor has seen it
happen. Sometimes an editor gets sick of thegame and quits,
and then we have a story. For example, William L. Chenery,
who was editor of the "Rocky Mountain News" during the
Colorado coal-strike, tells me that "the business men of Denver
attempted both an advertising and a social boycott in order to

prevent the publication of strike news I was told that

the owner of the paper would not be admitted to the Denver
Country Club so long as our editorials seemed to support the
cause of the strikers."

Or take the case of Boston. George French, managing
editor of a Boston paper, told how his paper lost four hundred
dollars on account of one item which the "interests" had for-
bidden. Says Mr. French, "That led to a little personal con-
versation, and to my retiring from the paper." He goes on
to state:

lYou cannot get anything into the newspapers that in any way
rubs up against the business policy of the banks and department
stores, or of the public service corporations. Those three great de-
partments of business are welded together with bands ever so much
stronger than steel, and you cannot make any impression on them.
News of department stores that is discreditable, or in any way attracts
unfavorable attention, is all squelched, all kept out of the papers.

I have told how Otis of Los Angeles ran the "Times" as a
Republican paper and an "open-shop" paper, and at the same
time ran secretly the "Herald," a Democratic paper and a
"closed-shop" paper. Here is a glimpse of the "Herald"
office, as narrated by Frank E. Wolfe, former managing editor
of the paper.

The Merchants' and Manufacturers' Associationtoofc up the propo-
sition of an aviation meet at Domingues Field. This was managed by
the walking delegate of the Merchants' and Manufacturers'. Association.
The manager gave out the concessions. I went to Domingues Field
19 289

290 The Brass Check

personally after the meet had been running a few days and found
conditions so abhorrent there that I came back and personally wrote

a story about fourteen or sixteen "blind pigs" running

Immediate reprisals came through the M. and M. — which controls
all the advertising placed in the newspapers of the city — ^by way of
taking out of the "Heirald" the advertising of a certain department-
store — the manager or proprietor of this store being one of the chief
moguls of the aviation field. They took their ad out, and the business-
manager of the "Herald" came storming in to see me, as they always
do in cases of this sort, to see who wrote the story. And when I told
him I wrote it myself from facts I had, he wanted me to print an
apology. That I have not yet done.

There is a law against workingmen getting together and
enforcing a boycott; the Danbury hatters tried it, and the
courts fined them several hundred thousand dollars, and took
away their homes and turned them out onto the street. But if
big advertisers choose to get together and boycott a magazine,
the law of course would not dream of being impolite. At the
very time that this Danbury hatters case was in the courts, the
late C. W. Post was explaining in "Leslie's," our barber-shop
weekly, how he broke the newspapers and magazines to
his will.

A friend of mine once had the honor of meeting Mr. Post
and standing in his private vault and being permitted to handle
a package containing four million dollars worth of government
bonds. All this had been made out of advertisements, which
had persuaded the public to buy package cereals, of precisely
the' same food-value as bread, at a price several times as high
as bread. On January 33rd, 1913, Mr. Post published in
"Leslie's" an article, urging business men to organize and
refuse to give advertisements to "muck-raking" publications;
and "Leslie's" contributed an illuminating cartoon, "The Fool
Who Feeds the Monster!" On April 10th Mr. Post con-
tributed another article, describing his methods. He had his
clerks go over all publications, listing objectionable matter, and
he sent a form letter to oflfending publications, threatening to
withdraw his valuable advertising unless they promised to be
"good" in the future.

Mr. Post told what he was doing. There were others who
preferred to work in the dark. Perhaps the most significant
case was that of "Collier's Weekly" and the Ballinger "land
fraud" scandals. Norman Hapgood and Robert Collier broke
the Taft administration on that issue, and President Taft, a

The Abteetisinq Boycott 291

venomous old man when he was crossed, issued a furldus
denunciation of "Collier's": whereupon the National Associa-
tion of Manufacturers, the most powerful organization in the
country, took the field against "muck-raking" magazines.
They not only applied the advertising boycott to "Collier's,"
they set the banks to work, as in the case of "Haihpton's," and
they took away control of the magazine from Robert Collier,
and put it into the hands of a banking committee, where it
stayed. "Robbie" took to flying aeroplanes, and a year or two
ago he died, and "Collier's" published a full-page bbituary of
him, telling the many services he had performed for the
public — except the one really important service, that he had
broken the Taft administration over the Ballinger "land fraud"
issue! Imagine a magazine, that, on the death of its owner,
does not dare to mention the greatest event of its owner's life !

I had an opportunity to watch, from the inside, the opera-
tion of this advertising boycott, in the case of my article, the
"Condemned Meat Industry." Many pages of advertising
were withdrawn from "Everybody's Magazine" — ^not merely
advertisements of hams and lard, but of fertilizers, soaps and
railways. Lawson several times tried to publish the names of
these boycotting advertisers, but "Everybody's" would not let
him. "Everybody's" possibly reflected that it might not keep
up this muck-raking business always; when it had secured
enough readers, it might let down and become respectable, and
then all the big advertisers would come back to it — as they
have done !

The few men who really did mian business knew that the
advertisers would never come back to them, so they fought
the fight through to a finish — ^their own finish. So it was with
"Hampton's," so it was with "Pearson's" under the old regime.
"Pearson's" tried publishing on the cheapest news-print paper
and with no advertisements, and for two or three years "Pear-
son's" was the only popular magazine in America from which
you could get the truth. It was the only one which dared to
fight the Railroad Trust and the Beef Trust, the only one
which dared tell the truth about the Associated Press, and
about Capitalist Journalism in general.

Early in 1914 it published a series of articles by Charles
Edward Russell : "Keeping the Kept Press," "The Magazine
Soft-Pedal," and "How Business Controls the News." Russell
told the story of the "Boston Traveller," which was bought Iq;;

292 The Brass Check

a young reformer, and put under the control of a real news-
paper-man, Marlin E. Pew. The young reformer died, and
the Shoe Machinery Trust bought the paper and ordered Pew
to be good. He refused, and stood on the contract which he
had with the paper. He had a story affecting a big financial
house. Threats were made, the business manager was con-
fronted with ruin, the paper was tied up, and Pew was forced
to sell his contract for cash. I write this story, and the name
of the paper sounds familiar to me. I search my memory.
Oh, yes ! It was the "Boston Traveller," which, a couple of
years ago, published a report to the effect that the authorities
of Boston were about to confiscate copies of my magazine, and
that copies had been thrown out of the library of Radcliffe
College. I wrote to the librarian of Radcliffe College, and she
replied that the report was a complete fabrication.

Also Russell told how someone tried to run an independent
newspaper in Indianapolis, where the street-railway companies,
by various manipulations, had boosted the capitalization of the
railways from three million dollars to fifty-seven million dol-
lars. The "Indianapolis Sun" exposed the fact that the
congestion on these railways was caused by the fact that all
the cars were forced to pass in front of certain big department-
stores. Then the wage-slaves of the railways started to
organize ; the "Sun" backed them, and told how the companies
had automobiles which threw their lights on the entrance to
the hall where the men met, and took the name of every man
who entered. Also the "Sun" reported how the railway-com-
panies were having the union leaders slugged — and so the
"Sun" reporter was slugged ! The Merchants' Association got
busy, and the "Sun" advertisers were warned of a boycott.
A "safety commission" of the Chamber of Commerce was
organized, and a meeting was held, at which explicit instruc-
tions were given to all newspaper editors. The circulation of
the "Sun" had gone up from seventeen thousand to forty
thousand, but the advertising was cut off, and so the paper
had to quit.

In the same way the "Akron Press" ventured to support
a strike against the tire-companies, and was boycotted. The
same fate '^befell the "Cincinnati Post," which ventured to
expose a peculiar procedure engineered by a street railway
corporation. There was a limitation of twenty-five years upon
public franchises, so the state legislature passed a bill, per-

The Adveetising Boycott 393

mitting fifty-year franchises. The city council of Cincinnati
then passed one fifty-year franchise, after which the legislature
repealed the bill permitting fifty-year franchises for anybody
else!

In an article in the "Atlantic Monthly" for March, 1910,
Prof. Ross explained j^ist how tight the hold of the advertiser
upon the newspaper had then become :

Thirty years ago, advertising yielded less than half of the earnings
of the daily newspapers. Today it yields at least two-thirds. In the
larger dailies the receipts from advertisers are several times the
receipts from the readers, in some cases constituting ninety percent
of the total revenues. As the newspaper expands to eight, twelve, and
sixteen pages, while the price sinks to three cents, two cents, one cent,
the time comes when the advertisers support the newspaper.

And in "Pearson's," Charles Edward Russell gave the
figures for the magazines. He shows that at the prices then
prevailing (1914), a magazine publishing four hundred
thousand copies a month would support a net loss of over
sixteen hundred dollars for manufacturing costs alone, not
including the cost of illustrations, articles, salaries, rent, etc.
All this, plus any profit from the enterprise, must come from
the advertising. So largely did magazines depend upon the
advertising that some of them were practically given away in
order to get circulation. One large magazine was sold whole-
sale at an average price of three cents, another magazine was
paying out a total of five dollars for every one dollar it took
in through subscriptions.

And what if the advertising did not come? Why then, of
course, the magazine or newspaper went out of business. One
case of this sort I happened to see from the inside, as the
experience befell one of my intimate friends — Gaylord Wil-
shire, the first Of America's heroic band of "millionaire
Socialists." Wilshire came from the West with a couple of
hundred thousand dollars, and established a Socialist magazine
in New York. He had got the figures from experts ; he must
have four hundred thousand circulation, and then he would be
safe. So he set out to get this circulation. He had a subscrip-
tion contest, with a trip around the world for a prize. He had
another with a grand piano for a prize. He gave away small
fortunes; also he published the truth about American public
affairs, and he published the most penetrating editorial com-
ment then to be read in America. So he got his four hundred

294 The Brass Check

thousand subscribers. But alas, he had reckoned without his
advertisers! For some strange reason the packers of hams
and bacon, the manufacturers of automobiles and ready-made
clothing, of toilet perfumeries and fancy cigarettes, would not
pay their money to a Socialist magazine ! Wilshire was close
to the rocks, and decided that to publish a Socialist magazine
in America a man needed a gold-mine. He bought a gold-mine,
and for the last twelve or thirteen years has been wrestling
with it. He has just about got it ready to pay; I wonder,
will he get his Socialist paper started before we have
Socialism ?

CHAPTER XLV
THE ADVERTISING ECSTASY

Such was the fate of a magazine which rebelled. As for
those which submitted, the answer is writ large on our news-
stands. "McClure's," "Collier's," "Everybody's," the "Amer-
ican" have survived, as a woman without virtue, as a man
without honor, of whom his friends say that he would better
have died. The masters of finance have taken not merely the
conscience from them, they have taken the life from them. If
there was a man on the editorial staff with red blood in his
veins, they turned him out to become a Socialist soap-boxer,
and in his place they put a pithed frog. (You know, perhaps,
how the scientist takes the nerves out of a frog's body and
puts in pith?)

Not merely have the money-masters stamped their sign
upon the contents of the magazines, they have changed the
very form to suit their purposes. Time was when you could
take the vast bulk of a magazine, and rip off one fourth from
the front and two fourths from the back, and in the remaining
fourth you had something to read in a form you could enjoy .-
But the advertising gentry got on to that practice and stopped
it. They demanded what they call "full position," next to
reading-matter. One magazine gave way, and then another;
until now all popular magazines are cunning traps to bring
your mind into subjection to the hawkers of wares. I pick up
the current number of the "Literary Digest" ; there are a
htmdred and twenty-eight pages, and the advertising begins on
page thirty-five. I pick up the current number of the "Satur-
day Evening Post" ; there are a hundred and fifty-eight pages,
and the advertising begins on page twenty-nine. You start an
article or a story, and they give you one or two clean pages to
lull your suspicions, and then at the bottom you read, "Con-
tinued on page 93." You turn to page ninety-three, and biff —
you are hit between the eyes by a powerful gentleman wearing
a collar, or swat — ^you are slapped on the cheek by a lady in a
union-suit. You stagger down this narrow column, as one who
runs the gauntlet of a band of Indians with clubs; and then

395

396 The Brass Check

you read, "Continued on page 99." You turn to page ninety-
nine, and somebody throws a handful of cigarettes into your
face, or maybe a box of candy; or maybe it is the crack of a
revolver, or the honk of an automobile-horn that greets you.
The theme of the reading-matter may be the importance of
war-savings, but before you get to the end of the article you
have been tempted by -every luxury from a diamond scarf-pin
to a private yacht, and have spent in imagination more money
than you will earn in the balance of your life-time.

The culmination of this process may be studied in the
supreme product of Capitalist Journalism, the "Curtis Publica-
tions"; the peerless trilogy of the "Saturday Evening Post,"
the "Ladies' Home Journal," and the "Country Gentleman."
How many boys in college are making fortunes in their spare
time, selling this trilogy to all America ? I don't know, but if
you write to the circulation department in Philadelphia, they
will tell you, and perhaps let you join the opulent band. One
hundred and thirty times every year these Curtis people pre-
pare for their millions of victims a fat bulk of "high-class" —
that is to say, high-paying — advertising. As street-urchins
gather to scramble for pennies, so gather here all the profit-
seekers of the country to compete for your attention; they
wheedle and cajole and implore, they shriek and scream, they
dance and gesticulate and turn somersaults. I say "they" do
it; in reality, of course, they hire others to do it; they take
the brains and vitality and eagerness of our youth — ^they waste
in a single week enough writing talent and drawing talent to
create an American literature and an American art.

The stake is a colossal one. Writing ten years ago, Hamil-
ton Holt showed that the American people were spending a
hundred and forty-five million dollars a year for advertise-
ments in periodicals. Also he stated that one Chicago depart-
ment-store had spent half a million in advertising to sell fifteen
million in goods. At this rate of thirty to one, the public was
being persuaded, by means of advertising, to purchase four and
a half billion dollars worth of goods. Allowing for the
increase in extravagance and in prices today, the expenditure
cannot be less than ten or twenty billions. Such is the prize
to be scrambled for; and when you realize it, you no longer
wonder at the raptures to which our advertisement-writers are
impelled, the exhibitions of language-slinging to which they
treat us.

The Advertising Ecstasy 297

What is your literary taste ? Are you poetical ? Does your
temperament run to the flowery and ecstatic? If so, you will
be "landed" by the full-page advertisement which I find in my
evening newspaper, displaying a spreading peacock and half
a dozen peacock-ladies in a Whirl of ruffles and frills. "THE
RAINBOW OF FASHIONS," runs the heading, and con-
tinues in this fine, careful rapture :

Other than this the impression is inadequate, that glimpse beheld
of this Fashion Salon, this inimitable Third Floor of Goldstein's.

What but the Rainbow with its inexpressible sunburst of color
could be the source — the inspiration from which Fashion has modeled
these veritable Exquisites — these beautiful new Frocks and Suits and
Coats, these Skirts and Capes — ^these Blouses and Hats for Milady's
luxury?

Truly the Genii of Fashionery are leading us into glory Fields of
Beauty never before attained, although it seemed for a time that Artists
of Vogue had decided to jpaint indefinitely upon that picture of yester-
day, with an occasional new tint perhaps to relieve somewhat the
monotonous restrictions both in style and in fabric.

But now — today — at Goldstein's — ^the picture is a new one — start-
ling and irresistible — ^to be elaborated upon each day — for it is each
day that new thoughts are added as new Express Packages are opened
from Fashiondom.

Come, take a pencil peek with me — ^and ONLY as a pencil sees
them — not at all as they are — or as you may see them if you come
where these "Pretties" are all assembled — where fashions are wont to
congregate at Goldstein's.

Or does your taste run to humor? Are you blufif and
hearty, a real fellow and a good sport? Then maybe your
purse-strings will be loosened by the full-page advertisement
which appears in all the magazines for August, 1919, portray-
ing a stout and sensual gentleman with a pipe in his mouth
and a wink in both eyes. Cries this gentleman :

SCRUB UP YOUR SMOKEDECKS AND CUT FOR A NEW
PIPE DEAL! Say, you'll have a streak of smokeluck that'll put pep-
in- YOUR smokemotor, all right, if you'll ring-in with a jimmy pipe
or the papers and nail some "Devil's-dung" for packing !

Just between ourselves, you never will wise-up to high-spot-smoke-
joy until you can call a pipe or a home-rolled cigarette by its first
name, THEN, to hit the peak-of-pleasure you land square on that
two-fisted-man-tobacco, "Devil's-dung !"

Well, sir, you'll be so all-fired happy you'll want to get a photo-
graph of yourself breezing up the pike with your smokethrottle wide
open! TALK ABOUT SMOKE-SPORT!

And now, stop and consider what proportion of the total
energies of the community are devoted to the production of

a»8 The Brass Check

poisonous filth such as this. I do not count the people who
read and answer the advertisements; I count only those who
write them and sell them, those who set the type and manu-
facture the paper, those who distribute the publications and
keep the accounts of the complicated operations. There can-
not be less than a million people thus occupied with the adver-
tising business in America ; and all of them buried to the eyes
in this poisonous filth, all compelled to absorb it, to believe it,
to have their personalities befouled by it ! It means, of course,
that these people are permanently excluded from the intel-
lectual life. These people cannot know beauty, they cannot
know grace and charm, they cannot know dignity, they cannor
even know common honesty. To say that they are bound as
captives to the chariot-wheds of Mammon is not to indulge in
loose metaphor, but to describe precisely their condition. They
are bound in body, mind, and soul to vulgarity, banality,
avarice and fraud.

You, perhaps, are not connected with the advertising busi-
ness, so you think you may ignore the fate of these pitiful
captives. You are a banker, perhaps; you handle the money
of advertisers, and your mind is shaped by the effort to under-
stand them and their ways. Or you are a telegrapher, and
send telegrams for the advertising business ; or you are a
farmer, and raise food for the million advertisement-makers;
or you are a steel-worker, and help to make their typewriters,
the nails for their shoes, and the rails over which their
products are carried.

Or perhaps you are a person of leisure; you dwell alone
in an ivory tower of art. Now and then, however, you have
to know something about the world in which you live; and
competitive commercialism ordains that when you seek to
learn this, you shall have the maniac shrieks of advertisers
resounding in your brain, you shall have the whirling dervishes
of this new cult of Publicity for Profit cavorting about in your
hrory tower. More than that, you shall have the intellectual
content of everything you read distorted by the advertisements
which adjoin them; your most dignified editor, your most
aloof, "art for art's sake" poet will be a parasite upon adver-
tisements, and if he thinks the advertisements have nothing
to do with him, it is only because the dignified editor and the
aloof, "art for art's sake'-' poet are fools.

Take the "American Magazine"; that awful flub-dub I

The Adyertising Ecstasy 299

quoted earlier in the book. What can it mean, save that the
'American Magazine" had to have advertisements, and to get
the advertisements it had to please the sort of people who read
advertisements? Or take the "Curtis Publications"; what is
the obvious fact about this colossal advertisement-distributing
machine? The owner of this machine, needless to say, is not
in the business of distributing advertisements for his health.
On the contrary, he has lost his health and made eleven
million dollars. His price for advertisements is six thousand
dollars per page. To carry these advertisements, he must
have reading matter, and to select this reading matter he
employs a group of men and women called "editors." These
"editors" are, of course, in position to ofifer prices such at
thrill the soul of every hungry author, and cause him to set
diligently to work to study the personalities of the "editors,"
so as to know what they want. If he doesn't find out what
they want, he doesn't write for the publications — ^that is
obvious enough. On the other hand, if he does find -out. what
they want, he becomes a new star in America's literary firma-
ment — ^and at the cost of pretty nearly all his ideals of truth,
humanity and progress.

Take up the "Saturday Evening Post." Here is Harry
Leon Wilson, who used to show signs of brains, telling a
story of how a labor union tried to take control of a factory.
He exhausts his imagination to make this proposition ridicu-
lous, to pour contempt over these fool workingmen. And here
is a short story writer named Patullo, solemnly setting forth
that Socialism means dividing up ! And here is George Kibbe
Turner, who I used to think was one of America's coming
novelists, with a short story, which turns out not to be a short
story at all, but a piece of preaching upon the following grave
and weighty theme: that the trouble with America is that
everybody is spending too much money; that the railroad
brotherhoods are proposing to turn robbers and take away the
property of their masters; and that a workingman who is so
foolish as to buy a piano for his daughter will discover that he
has ruined himself to no purpose, because workingmen's
daughters ought not to have pianos — ^they are too tired to play
them when they get through with their work !

CHAPTER XLVI
THE BRIBE DIRECT

We are accustomed to the idea that in Europe there exists
a "reptile press," meaning a press whose opinions are for sale,
not merely to politicians and governments, but to promoters
and financiers ; we read of the "Bourse press" of Paris, and
understand that these papers accept definite cash sums for
publishing in their columns news favorable to great specula-
tions and industrial enterprises. I have heard America con-
gratulated that it had no such newspapers ; I myself was once
sufficiently naive so to congratulate America!

Naturally, it is not so easy to prove direct bribery of the
press. When the promoter of an oil "deal" or of a franchise
"grab" wishes to buy the support of a newspaper, he does not
invite the publisher onto the sidewalk and there count a few
thousand dollar bills into his hands. But as a person who
steals once will go on stealing, so a newspaper proprietor who
takes bribes becomes a scandal to his staff, and sooner or later
bits of the truth leak out. America has been fortunate in the
possession of one bold and truth-telling newspaper editor,
Fremont Older; and when you read his book, "My Own
Story," you discover that we have a "reptile press" in America,
a press that is for sale for cash.

The chances are that you never heard of Fremont Older's
book. It was published over a year ago, but with the exception
of a few radical papers, American Journalism maintained
about it the same silence it will maintain about "The Brass
Check." For twenty-five years Older was managing editor of
a great newspaper, and now, in the interest of public welfare,
he has told what went on inside that newspaper office. Older
began as a plain, every-day hireling of privilege, but little by
little his mind and his conscience awakened, he took his stand
for righteousness in his city, and fought the enemies of
righteousness, not merely at peril of his job, but at peril of
his life. The first time I met Older, ten years ago, he had
just been kidnapped by thugs and carried away in an automo-
bile and locked under armed guard in a compartment of a

300

The Bribe Direct 301

sleeping-car, to be carried into Southern California, where the
"S. P." controlled ever)rthing, and could "put him away." He
told me the story, and to this day I remember my consterna-
tion. Two or three years later I happened to tell it in England,
to a group of members of parliament ; they were Englishmen,
and were too polite to say what they thought, but I knew what
they thought. It was hopeless to tell that story to English-
men ; such things did not happen — except in "movies" !

The story of the "San Francisco Bulletin," as Fremont
Older tells it, is a story of corruption, systematic and con-
tinuous. The "Bulletin" was controlled in all four of the
ways. I have described ; not merely by the owner, by the owners
of the owner, and by the advertising subsidy, but by the bribe
direct. The owner of the "Bulletin" was a man named
Crothers, and he had an itching palm. It was itching at the
beginning of the story, when it was empty, and it was still
itching at the end of the story, when it was full. Says Fre-
mont Older:

In addition to this, the "Bulletin"' was on the pajrroll of the South-
ern Pacific Railroad for $125 a mpnth. This was paid not for any
definite service, but merely for "friendliness." Being always close to
the line of profit and loss, it was felt the paper could not afford to
forfeit this income.

These were in the early days, you understand, when Older
was playing the dirty game for his owner. He tells us, quite
frankly, how he did it. For example, here is a picture of a
great newspaper in politics :

I hoped to convince Charley Fay, Phelan's manager, to accept the
same plan in Phelan's fight that I used in the McKinley campaign;
that is to get Phelan to buy a certain number of extra "Bulletin"
editions. I suggested the idea to Fay that if I could be allowed several
10,000 editions of the "Bulletin" in addition to our regular circulation,
for which we would charge $500, I thought I could hold the paper in
line throughout the campaign.

But this was not enough for the itching palm, it appears:

He (Crothers) felt that the "Bulletin's" support was worth more
than an occasional $500. His pressure upon me for more money finally
became so strong that I called on Charley Fay and told him that I
would have to get out another extra edition to the number agreed
upon between us.

And then, a year or two later :

302 The Brass Check

The fight had barely started when Crothers came to me and saJd
that W. H. Mills, who handled the newspapers of California for
the railroad company, had agreed to raise the "Bulletin's" pay from
$125 to $250 a month if we would make only a weak support of the
new charter.

And again:

Crothers felt that the influence of' the "Bulletin" was worth more
than the Southern Pacific had been paying. He insisted that I go to
Mills and demand $25,000 from the railroad for supporting Gage. I
told him that this was ridiculous, that they wouldn't consider such a
sum for a minute. He insisted that he would have $25,000 or be
wouldn't support Gage, and demanded that I tell Mills that.

In these campaigns the "Bulletin" had been supporting the
Democratic candidate ; but it was supposed to be a Republican
paper, and in the next campaign the owner decided that unless
the Democrats paid him more money, he would become really
and truly "Republican." So Older went on the hunt once more.

Poniatowski said: "I will do all I can, but the best I can do per-
sonally is $500 a month for three months through the campaign. I
will put up the $1500 out of my own pocket."

I did not dare to go to anyone else, and I hoped, but faintly, that
this would be enough. I went to Crothers with the information that
I had got $1500 to support Tobin, and he said, "It isn't enough."

I was in despair. Only one other ruse remained by which I might
hold him. I asked former Mayor E. B. Pond, banker and million-
aire; James D. Phelan, mayor and millionaire, and Franklin K. Lane,
then a rising power in Californifi, to call on Crothers and see if they
could not prevail on him to stand by Tobin. Always greatly impressed
by wealth, I felt that their prominence and financial standing might ,
hold him. They called, and did their best, but made no impression.

A few days later the railroad paid Crothers $7500. It was paid
to him by a man not openly connected with the railroad. I learned of
it almost instantly. The report was confirmed by Crothers ordering
me to support Wells.

And now Fremont Older has been forced out of the
"Bulletin," and the paper has become rancid in the cause of
reaction, and carries at the top of its editorial page this proud
slogan : "R. A. Crothers, Editor and Proprietor."

And do you think that the owner of the "Bulletin" was
alone among San Francisco newspaper owners in the posses-
sion of an itching palm? The "San Francisco Liberator,"
organ of the reformers, showed how, in the effort to keep the
president of "United Railroads" out of jail, every crime up to
murder had been committed. Armed mobs had been organized

The Bribe Direct 303

to resist the city's authority ; thieves had been hired and safes
broken open, juries had been bribed and witnesses spirited
away ; last, but not least, public sentiment had been corrupted
through the press. The "Liberator" gives names and dates, a
whole mass of detail, which would fill a chapter of this book.
One example, well authenticated: One little local paper had
been purchased for seventy-five dollars, and in a period of
thirteen weeks had obtained thirty-two hundred and fifty
dollars from the publicity-bureau of "United Railroads"!

And as I write there comes to me a letter from an editor
of one of San Francisco's largest newspapers, a man who
knows the game from A to Z. He tells me the sordid history
of "Mike" de Young's "San Francisco Chronicle" :

TKe owner's brother was murdered not many years ago, because
of a blackmail story run in the paper. During the war it was he who
got the San Francisco Publishers' Association to charge the govern-
ment full advertising rates for all war loan organizations, etc. He
was a strong ally of the Southern Pacific when that road ran Cali-
fornia, and still fights for the railroads whenever he gets a chance.

I write to others in San Francisco, to be sure that I ara
making no mistake. One sends me a letter by Arthur McEwen,
a well-known journalist, made public twenty-five years ago.
Mr. de Young, says McEwen, has a grammar of his own; he
speaks of being "attackted," and he made famous the phrase,
"the tout ensemble of the whole." He is a multi-millionaire,
but for years had refused to pay fifteen dollars a month to
keep his insane brother out of the paupers' ward of the asylum.
He plunders the big corporations mercilessly, "having never
been able to see why he should not share in their prosperity."
Says McEwen:

He set up in court the contention that it is legitimate for a news-
paper to sell its editorial columns, and though he was reviled by his
startled contemporaries for that dangerous frankness, there is no rea-
son to doubt that he was sincere or unaffectedly astonished at the

notion of there being aught disgraceful in his admission

Not until the archives of the Crocker family have been opened to the
historian will it be known whether or not the common report be true
which affirms that "the title deeds to his California street mansion
are the intercepted love letters of a millionaire."

Another friend sends me a poem by Ambrose Bierce, en-
titled "A Lifted Finger." It is one of the most withering
denunciations of a human being ever penned. As a sample I

304 The Bbass Check

quote the last stanza, in which the victim is forbidden to kill
himself :

Pregnant with possibilities of crime,

And full of felons for all coming time.

Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt

In testimony to a venial guilt.

Live to get whelpage and preserve a name

No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame.

Live to fulfill the vision that I see

Down the dim vistas of the time to be:

A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes

Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies;

A dream of gleaming teeth and fetid breath

Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death;

A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues —

The whole world's gibbets loaded with de Youngs !

Let us go to Denver, where there lives another fighter and
teller of truth, Ben Lindsey. I have made you acquainted
with the "Denver Post," and with one of its owners, Mr. F. G.
Bonfils, who made his "pile" as a lottery-promoter, and went
into partnership with another man. Now let Judge Lindsey
introduce us to this other man :

The "Post" was then as independent as a highwayman. One of its
proprietors, H. H. Tammen, had begun life as a bar-keeper, and he
would himself relate how he had made money by robbing his employer.
"When I took in a dollar," Tammen said, "I tossed it up — and if it
stuck to the ceiling, it went to the boss." He had a frank way of
making his vices engaging by the honesty with which he confessed
them; and he had boasted to me of the amount of money the news-
paper made by charging its victims for suppressing news-stories of a
scandalous nature in which they were involved. He admitted that he
supported me merely because it was "the popular thing to do" — it
"helped circulation." I knewit was a very precarious support, although
the editorial writer, Paul Thieman, seemed to me an honest and public-
spirited young man.

Or come to Kansas City, where William Salisbury is work-
ing on the "Times." There is a fight on with the gas com-
panies, which have formed a trust and doubled the price of
gas. A solitary alderman named Smith has spoken against
the ordinance.

When I returned to the "Times'" office that night the city editor
came up to my desk, sat down, and said, confidentially: "We'll have
to print a favorable story on this consolidation. I wouldn't give much
space to that man Smith's remarks. I don't know what the gas people

The Beibe Direct 305

have done here in this office, but you can guess. They've bought the
Council."

Mr. Salisbury, you see, is only a reporter, so all he gets is
gossip and suspicion. He notes that the Kansas City, Pitts-
burg & Gulf Railway is completing a line to Port Arthur,
Texas; the railway company is advertising heavily in the
"Times," and he is sent to write up "a two-column iriterview
upon the beauties of Port Arthur." Again, he tells us :

I could write columns about Cuban revolutions, and anti-cigarette
and anti-high hat laws. But there were things that I couldn't write
about at all, and other things that I had to write as the city editor
told me, and as the owner or managing editor told him to tell me.
These included street railway and paving and gas and telephone and
other corporation measures, and anti-department store bills. And the
City Hall reporters of the three other newspapers wrote of such things
just as I did — from dictation.

Again, in Kansas City are great packing-houses, and the
people of Kansas City think they should have cheaper meat.
The newspapers take up the campaign, and Mr. Salisbury
tells what comes of it :

I did some detective work. At the end of several days I found
that all the packing-houses were represented at a meeting each week in
the Armour Building, at Fifth and Delaware Streets. I gave a negro
porter five dollars' to show me the room. It was his business to bring
the packers wine and cigars during the sessions at which they fixed
the prices of food for millions of people. He pointed out the chairs
in which each of them sat. He told me their names. He was willing
to arrange for me to listen in the next room when the meeting was
held again.

I returned to the "Times" ofSce in a fever of excitement. I told
.what I knew. The managing editor consulted with the business
manager. Then he came to me and said : "We won't print any more
meat trust stories for a while."

Several days later I saw packing-house advertisements in all the
newspapers. But none of the papers published any more news about
the price of meat for a very long time.

I quote this story, and then I realize that I have got out
of my classification ; this isn't a bribe, this is an advertisement !
I can only plead that it is hard to keep to a classification,
because those who are corrupting the press do not keep to it.
They use various methods ; and sometimes the methods shalde
into one another, so that only a legal expert could sort
them out !

20

306 The Bkass Check

When is a bribe not a bribe? When it is an order for
extra copies? When it is a share in a land deal? When it
is a nomination for senator? When it is an advertising con-
tract? For example, is this a bribe? Arthur Brisbane, the
most highly paid and most widely read editorial writer in
America, serves announcement to the public that he is going
to follow with regard to the drama a policy of "constructive
criticism"; he is going to tell the people about the plays that
are really worth seeing, so that the people may go to see them.
He writes a double-column editorial, praising a play, and two
or three days later there appears in the "Evening Journal" a
full-page advertisement of this play. Brisbane writes another
editorial, praising another play, and a few days later there
appears a full-page advertisement of this play. This happens
again and again, and all play-producers on Broadway under-
stand that by paying one thousand dollars for a full-page ad-
vertisement in the "New York Evening Journal," they may
have a double-column of the "constructive criticism" of Arthur
Brisbane !

Or is this a bribe? There is a fight for lower gas-rates
in Boston, and Louis Brandeis, now a Justice of the Supreme
Court, makes a plea in the interest of the public. One Boston
newspaper gives half a column of Brandeis' argimients; no
other Boston newspaper gives one word of Brandeis' argu-
ments; but every Boston newspaper prints a page of the gas
company's advertisements, paid for at one dollar per line !

If you will count these things as bribery, you are no longer
at a loss for evidence. You discover that great systems of
corruption of the press have been established ; the bribing of
American Journalism has become a large-scale business enter-
prise, which has been fully revealed by government investiga-
tions, and proven by the sworn testimony of those who do
the work.

CHAPTER XLVII
THE BRIBE WHOLESALE

Every now and then some pillar of Capitalism is over-
thrown, and a mess of journalistic worms go wriggling , to
cover. For example, the "New Haven" scandal: Some five
years ago the Interstate Commerce Commission revealed the
iact that the band of pirates who had wrecked the great "New
Haven" system had been paying four hundred thousand dol-
lars a year to influence the press ; and more significant yet, the
president of the railroad swore that this was "relatively less
than was paid by any other large railroad in the country!"
The "New Haven" had a list of reporters to whom it paid
subsidies, sometimes two hundred dollars in a lump, some-
times twenty-five dollars a week. It was paying three thou-
sand dollars a year to the "Boston Republic." "Why?" was
the question, and the answer was, "That is Mayor t^itzgerald's
paper." The agent of the road who had handled this money
stated that "All the newspapers and magazines knew what it
was for." He had paid money to over a thousand papers,
among them the "Boston Evening Transcript," for sending
cut railroad "dope." This "New Haven," you understand,
was the road which wrecked "Hampton's" for refusing to be
bought. It was a "Morgan" road.

It was the same way with the Mulhall revelations, brought
out by a committee of the United States Senate. Here was
the "National Association of Manufacturers" and the "Mer-
chant Marine League," spending enormous subsidies for prop-
aganda with newspapers. When the La Follette Seamen's
Law was being fought in the Senate, it was shown that the
great newspapers were distributing every year two million dol-
lars for shipping advertisements, and they claimed and got
their return in the form of bitter opposition to this bill. During
the Life Insurance investigations in New York, it was shown
that every one of these great financial enterprises maintained
not merely an advertising bureau, but a "literary bureau."
The Mutual Life Insurance Company had employed a certain
"Telegraphic News Bureau," which supplied newspapers with

307

308 The Brass Check

propaganda which they published as reading matter. For one
item, supplied to about one hundred different papers, the agent
had been paid over five thousand dollars. What the news-
papers were paid was not brought out, but the agent testified
that he had been paid one dollar a line, while the papers had
been paid as high as five dollars a line. Also there was another
agency, through which the Mutual Life was sending out what
it called "telegraphic readers." The big newspapers had
special advertising agents to solicit this kind of paid material,
and they had regular printed schedules of rates for publish-
ing it.

In the same way Attorney-General Monnett of Ohio
brought out that the Standard Oil Company maintained the
"Jennings Advertising Agency" to distribute and pay for prop-
aganda upon this contract:

The publisher agrees to reprint on news or editorial pages of said
newspaper such notices, set in the body type of said paper and bear-
ing no mark to indicate advertising, as are furnished from time to

time by said Jennings Agency at the rate of per line, and to

furnish such agency extra copies of paper containing such notes at
four cents per copy.

In the same way the Standard Oil Company was shown to
have paid from five hundred to a thousand dollars for the
publication of a single article in Kansas newspapers. The
Standard Oil had a subsidized press of its own — for example,
the "Oil City Derrick" — and it had subsidized "Gunton's Maga-
zine" to the extent of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

In the same way it was brought out by Governor Hunt of"
Arizona, during the recent great copper strike, that the mine-
owners had been bribing the local newspapers in Greenlee
County for printing "plate-matter" favorable to them. It was
shown that the liquor lobby had maintained an enormous
"slush" fund for the press. It was shown that the great public
utility interests of the Middle West had maintained a publicity
bureau to send out material against municipal ownership. It
was shown that the high tariff interests had been maintaining
a Washington bureau and sending out "news letters," all paid
for. It was shown that the railroad companies were doing the
same thing; in a single office of their publicity department-^
that in Chicago — ^they had forty-three employes, and the man-
ager stated to Ray Stannard Baker that before this bureau
began its work, four hundred and twelve columns of matter

The Bribe Wholesale 309

opposed to the railroads had appeared in the newspapers ,of
Nebraska, but after the bureau had been in operation for three
months, in one week the newspapers of Nebraska had pubHshed
two hundred and two columns favorable to the railroads, and
only four columns against them!

_ And year by year, as the plundering of the people increases,
this "bribe wholesale" becomes a greater menace; to-day, as
I write, it has become a nation-wide propaganda. Testifying
before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of the
United States Senate, January 14, 1919, Frank Heney shows
that to defeat the bill for government regulation of the pack-
ing industry now before Congress, Swift & Company alone
are spending a million dollars a month upon newspaper adver-
tising ! Heney testifies that he has had an examination made
of every newspaper in California, and every one has published
the full-page advertisements of this firm. Senator Norris
testifies that he has had an examination made in New York
State, and has been unable to find a single paper without the
advertisements — which, it is pointed out, are not in any way
calculated to sell the products of Swift & Company, but solely
to defeat government regulation of the industry. Armour &
Company were paying over two thousand dollars a page to all
the farm publications of the country — and this not for adver-
tisements, but for "special articles"! J. Ogden Armour was
put on the stand, and some amusement developed. He had
given a banquet to the editors of these farm-journals ; he did
not expect this banquet to have any influence upon the adver-
tising, but he did have a vague hope that both banquet and
advertising might dispose the editors to look with less disfavor
upon the Armour business !

Day by day the money-masters of America become more
aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more
class-conscious, more aggressive. The war has taught them
the possibilities of propj^ganda ; it has accustomed them to the
idea of enormous campaigns which sway the minds of millions
and make them pliable to any purpose. They have been ter-
rified by what happened in Russia and Hungary, and they
propose to see to it that the foreign population of America is
innoculated against modern ideas. They form the "Publishers'
Association of the American Press in Foreign Languages,"
whose purpose it i$ "to foster unswerving Ibyalty to American
ideals" — ^that is to say, to keep America capitalist. Then a

310 The Beass Check

group of our biggest exploiters, headed by Coleman du Pont
of the Powder Trust, buy the "American Association of
Foreigji Language Newspapers." They give a dinner to the
heads of all the newspaper advertising agencies, at the
Bankers' Club of New York, and explain that in future all
advertising must be placed through this great association. So
the massed advertising power of American corporations is to
be wielded as a club, to keep the newspaper columns and the
editorial columns of foreign language newspapers free from
radicalism. So when there is a strike anywhere in the
"Powder barony," and Poles and Hungarians are being bayo-
netted and shot, the powder barons will know that Polish and
Hungarian newspapers are printing no news of the shooting,
and giving no encouragement to the strike.

I write the above a priori; that is to say, I understand
American Capitalism so well that I venture to guess what it
plans to do with its foreign-language press machine. And six
months later, as I am sending this book to the printer, I dis-
cover that I have guessed correctly ! The great steel-strike is
on, and the following appears in an Associated Press dispatch
from Youngstown, Ohio:

Managers of five foreign language newspapers to-day decided to
publish special editions of their papers explaining to their countrjrmen
that if they are satisfied with present mill-conditions they should meet
and vote on the question of returning to work.

And, on the other hand, if the foreign-language newspapers
decide to get along without advertising, and to stand by the
workers, what then? Then we denounce them as Bolsheviks,
and demand deportation of their editors and publishers; we
raid their offices and confiscate their lists and bar them from
our mails. If necessary, some of our corrupt interests "frame
up" evidence against them, and throw their editors and pub-
lishers into jail.

The above may sound to you an extreme statement. But
as this book is going to press I come upon definite evidence of
precisely such a case, and you will find it in full in the last
chapter.

CHAPTER XLVIII
POISON IVY

I have asked the difficult question, When is a bribe not a
bribe? When it is "legitimate business"? When, for instance,
the "New Haven" is discovered to have ordered 9,716 copies
of the "Outlook" containing a boost of the "New Haven"
system by Sylvester J. Baxter, a paid writer of the "New
Haven" ? You may read the details of this in "The Profits of
Religion"; the president of the "Outlook" corporation wrote
to me that the "New Haven" bought these copies "without any
previous understanding or arrangement." They are so naive
in the office of this religious weekly; nobody had the slightest
idea that if they boosted some railroad grafters in peril of
discovery, these grafters might come back with a big order!
And right now, while the railroads are trying to get their prop-
erties back, and all their debts paid out of the public treasury,
the spending of millions of dollars upon advertising is per-
fectly legitimate — ^it does not have the slightest effect upon
newspaper editorial policy ! When the miners of Colorado go
on strike, and the Rockefellers proceed to fill every daily and
weekly newspaper in the state of Colorado with full-page
broad-sides against the miners, this of course is not a bribe;
the fact that on the page opposite there will appear an editor-
ial, reproducing completely the point of view of the advertise-
ments — ^that is a pure coincidence, and the editorial is the
honorable and disinterested opinion of the newspaper editor!
When the United States Commission on Industrial Relations
exposes the fact that these attacks on the miners contain the
most outrageous lies, and that the thousand-dollar-a-month
press-agent of the Rockefellers knew they were lies — it is a
pure coincidence that very little about this revelation is pub-
lished in the Colorado newspapers !

This last incident is so important as to deserve fuller
exposition. The thousand-dollar-a-month press-agent of the
Rockefellers was a gentleman by the name of Ivy L. Lee, and
after the strikers had experienced his methods for a while,
they referred to him as "Poison Ivy." He took the published

311

312 The Brass Check

annual report of the Secretary-Treasurer of the United Mine
Workers, which showed that the national vice-president of the
union in charge of the Colorado strike had received a yearly
salary of .$3,395.73 and a year's expenses of $1,667.30. He put
these two figures together, calling it all salary, $4,063.93 ; and
then he added the expenses again, making a total of $5,730.13 ;
and then he said that all this had been paid to the national
vice-president for nine weeks' work on the strike — ^thus show-
ing that he was paid over ninety dollars a day, or at the rate
of thirty-two thousand dollars a year !

By the same method, he showed that another official was^
paid sixty-six dollars a day ; that John R. Lawson had received
$1,773.40 in nine weeks! Old "Mother" Jones was listed at
forty-two dollars a day; the actual fact being that for her
work as organizer she was paid $3.57 a day — and this not
including the many months which she spent in jail for refusing
to leave the strike-district! The "bulletin" containing these
figures was published in all the newspapers, and was mailed
out over the country to the extent of hundreds of thousands
of copies; and when the miners exposed the falsity of the
statements, "Poison Ivy" postponed correcting them until the
strike was lost, and until he knew that the Walsh Commission
was on his trail ! Thirty-two separate "bulletins" this scoun-
drel sent out over the United States, and many of them were
full of just such lies as this. If you want details, you may
consult two articles by George Creel in "Harper's Weekly,"
for November 7th and 14th, 1914.

There are thousands of such press agents serving our
predatory interests, but not often are we permitted to peer
into their inmost souls, to watch them at their secret offices.
The Walsh Commission was so cruel as to put "Poison Ivy"
on the stand, and also to publish his letters to his master. An
examination of these letters shows him performing functions
not usually attributed to press-agents. We see him preparing
and revising a letter for Governor Ammons to send to Presi-
dent Wilson. (You remember, perhaps, in my story of Gov-
ernor Ammons, my charge that the coal operators wrote his
lying telegram to the President? Maybe you thought that was
just loose talk!) We see "Poison Ivy" arranging for the dis-
tribution of an enormous edition of a speech on the Colorado
coal-strike by the "kept" congressmen of the coal-operators —
the speech containing "Polly Pry," with the slanders against

Poison Ivy 313

"Mother Jones," sent out under government frank! We see
him following the newspapers with minute care ; for example,
calling Mr. Rockefeller's attention to the fact that the
Northampton, Massachusetts, "Herald" had used a part of his
first bulletin as an editorial ; also sending to Mr. Rockefeller
an editorial by Arthur Brisbane, sneering at our "mourning
pickets." Finally, this remarkable press-agent claims that he
persuaded the Walsh Commission not to come to Colorado till
the operators had finished strangling the strike. That he
actually did this, I cannot say. Perhaps it was just a coinci-
dence that the commission delayed to come, and "Poison Ivy"
was "stringing" Mr. Rockefeller, to make sure of that
thousand dollars a month !

Would you like to be such a press-agent, and get such a
salary as this ? If so, you can find full directions, set forth by
"Poison Ivy" himself in an address to the "American Railway
Guild." At this time he was prize poisoner for the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad, and he explains that it is all a question of
psychology. "Success in dealing with crowds, that success we
have got to attain if we are to solve the railroad question,
rests upon the art of getting believed in." And our prize
poisoner goes on to give concrete illustrations of how to get
the railroads "believed in." If you are opposing a "full crew"
law, you will get "believed in" by changing the name of the
measure to an "extra crew" law. If you are going into bank-
ruptcy, you will get "believed in" by calling it a "readjustment
of finances." If you are fighting a strike, and one small group
of the strikers demands a particularly large increase in wages,
you will get "believed in" by so phrasing your statement as to
make it appear that all the miners are making the same unrea-
sonable demand as the little group. "Miners Ask One Hun-
dred and Fifty Per Cent Increase in Wages," cites "Poison
Ivy." He sent a copy of this brilliant production to Mr.
Rockefeller, and on the strength of it got a considerable
increase in wages himself !

CHAPTER XLIX
THE ELBERT HUBBARD WORM

The Egyptians had sacred beetles, and Capitalist Jour-
nalism has sacred insects of various unpleasant and poisonous
species. There was one sacred worm which all Capitalist
Journalism venerated, and the Walsh Commission broke into
the temple where this worm was kept, and tore away the
sacred veils, and dragged the wriggling carcass out into the
light of day. This was Elbert Hubbard, alias "Fra Elbertus,"
editor of the "Philistine," "Roycroft," and the "Fra," founder
of the "Roycroft Shops," host of the "Roycroft Inn," and
patron saint of East Aurora, New York. That the "Fra" was
one of the high gods of Capitalist Journalism you can surely
not deny. He was the very personification of the thing it
calls "Success"; his books were circulated by millions, his
magazines by hundreds of thousands, and all the world of
hustlers and money-makers read and gloried in him. He is
gone now, but they still keep his image in their Pantheon, and
the corporations water his grave by free distributions of "A
Message to Garcia." We are told to say nothing but good of
the dead, but my concern in life is for the living, so I shall
tell what I know about this sacred worm.

I have mentioned in Chapter V my early experience with
him. Prices were low in these days, and I am told that Hub-
bard got only five hundred dollars from the packers for his
slashing of "The Jungle" : "Can it be possible that any one is
deceived by this insane rant and drivel ?" You may think that
I cherish anger because of such violence to myself ; you may
not believe me, but I state the fact — I cherish anger because
I tried to bring help to thirty thousand men, women and chil-
dren living in hell, and this poisonous worm came crawling
over their faces and ate out their eyes. And because again,
and yet again, I saw this same thing happen! The wage-
slaves of the Copper Trust went on strike, and this poisonous
worm crawled over them and ate out their eyes. And then
came the Colorado coal-strike — and the poisonous worm

314

The Elbert Hubbabd Worm 315

crawled on its belly to the office of the Rockefellers, looking
for more eyes to eat. Thanks to Frank Walsh, we may watch
him and learn how to be a worm.

First, when an eye-eating worm approaches the great ones
of the earth, it applies what it calls the "human touch"; it
establishes itself upon terms of equality, it gives them a
hearty hand-clasp, perhaps a slap on the back — if you can
imagine such actions from a worm. Listen to "Fra Elbertus,"
addressing young Rockefeller:

I had a delightful game of golf with your father on Saturday.
How fine and brown and well and strong he is.

To which "Young John" responds with graceful cordiality :

Father has spoken of your visit to Tarrytown the other day, and «f
the good game of golf which you had together. He is indeed in the
best of health.

These little amenities having been attended to. We proceed
to the business in hand. Says the worm :

I have been out in Colorado and know a little about the situation
there. It seems to me that your stand is eminently right, proper and
logical. A good many of the strikers are poor, unfortunate ignorant
foreigners who imagine that there is a war on and that they are
fighting for liberty. They are men with the fighting habit, preyed
upon by social agitators.

I am writing something; on the subject, a little after the general
style of my article on "The Copper Country," in the "Fra Magazine"
for May. I mail you a- copy of the "Fra" today. I believe you will be
interested in what I have to say about the situation in Northern
Michigan.

-Just now it seems very necessary that someone should carry on a
campaign of education, showing this country, if possible, that we are
drifting at present in the direction of I. W. W. Socialism.

Are you interested in distributing a certain number of copies of
the "Fra" containing my article on the Colorado situation?

Also, what do you think of the enclosed booklets? I have dis-
tributed these on my own account up to the extent of neariy a
million, but I have not the funds to distribute a million more as I
would like to do.

Any suggestions from you in the line of popular education will be
greatly appreciated.

"Popular education," you perceive ! The worm is a public
worm, serving the public welfare, animated by a grand, lofty
ideal, to protect "the poor, unfortunate, ignorant foreigners,"
who are "preyed upon by social agitators" I Mr. Rockefeller,

316 The Brass Check

of course, appreciates this, and is grateful for the support of
so noble and disinterested a worm ; he writes :

Your letter of May 3rd is received. I thank you for your words
of approval in connection with my stand on the question of the
rights of the independent workers.

But of course, as a business man, Mr. Rockefeller has to
be cautious. He has to know what he is buying. He will pay
for the silk which a worm can make, but not until it is made.

I have looked over the number of the "Fra" which you have sent
me with interest, and shall be glad to see the article which you are
proposing to write regarding the Colorado situation.

Not too cordial ; but the worm has written books on Sales-
manship, explaining how you- must not give up at one rebuff,
but must come back again and again, wearing the other fellow
down. He tries again :

On May 3rd I sent you a copy of the "Copper Country"' number
of the "Fra" magazine. Our friends up north have distributed a large
number of these, sending the magazines out from here, duly blue-
penciled.

I have upwards of a million names of members of Boards of
Trade, Chambers of Commerce, Advertising Qubs, Rotarians, Jovians,
school teachers, all judges, members of Congress, etc.

It seems to me that we could well afford to circulate a certain
number of copies of the "Fra" containing a judicious and truthful
write-up of the situation in Colorado.

"Judicious and truthful," you note. Never would our
noble worm write anything that was not truthful ; while as for
being judicious, it is a virtue desperately needed in this crisis,
while agitators are parading back and forth in front of the
entrance to Mr. Rockefeller's office building! The judicious
worm has observed our antics and their success aild he tact-
fully reminds Mr. Rockefeller of this:

Just here I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration for
the advertising genius displayed by those very industrious, hard-
working people Bill Hasrwood, Charles Moyer, Mother Jones, Emma
Goldman, Lincoln Steflens and Upton Sinclair. They are continually
stating their side of the controversy. I believe if we would state ours,
not of course in the same way or with the same vehemence, that we
would be benefiting the world to a very great degree.

The worm is all for benefiting the world ; not for benefiting
the worm — nor even for benefiting Rockefeller! But the

The Elbeet Hubbakd Woem 317

worm is worthy of his hire, and would not cheapen himself
and his advertising genius in the esteem of a business man.
"The price of extra copies of the 'Fra' is $200 a thousand," he
writes. He proposes to charge Mr. Rockefeller twenty cents
apiece for magazines which he can prpduce and mail for ten
cents apiece. In other words, he suggests that Mr. Rocke-
feller shall pay him two hundred thousand dollars, from which,
after paying postage and wrapping, he will retain at least one
hundred thousand !

But alas, it is notorious how the business man fails to
appreciate genius! Mr. Rockefeller consults "Poison Ivy"
Lee, whose advice is that the worm shall be allowed to go out
to Colorado and see everything, but "have it distinctly under-
stood that he is making this study entirely on his own initiative
and at his own expense. If, after he has produced his article
and you have read it, it seems to you something worth dis-
tributing, an arrangement for such distribution can be made
with him."

A cold, cold world for a public educator and prophet of
judiciousness! These business men haggle, precisely as if
Pegasus could be harnessed to a garbage-wagon! Says Mr.
Rockefeller, writing to the president of the Colorado Fuel &
Iron Company in Denver:

I have not seen Mr. Hubbard nor given him any encouragement
in this matter, other than as set forth in the above correspondence.

To which comes the reply from Denver :

Mr._ Hubbard's price for extra copies of his publication is to my

mind high We can determine after he has produced his

article whether or not we should go any further than we already have
in enlarging its distribution.

There was more of this correspondence. It was printed in
"Harper's Weekly" under the title, "Elbert Hubbard's Price" ;
the substance of the matter being summed up by "Harper's
Weekly" as follows :

Mr. Hubbard's proposal, it will he, seen, had two parts. 1. To
sell his opinion. 2. Later on to make an "investigation" in support
of that opinion.

CHAPTER L
THE PRESS AND PUBLIC WELFARE

As a result of the operation of all these forces, we have a
class-owned press, representing class-interests, protecting class-
interests with entire unscrupulousness, and having no concep- '
tion of the meaning of public welfare. These words may seem
extreme, but I mean them to be taken literally. When our
press says "the public," it means the property-owning class,
and if in a newspaper-ofifice you should assume it meant any-
thing else, you would make yourself ridiculous. "We are not
in business for our health," is the formula whereby this matter
is summed up in the "business-ofifice" of our newspapers. It
is only in the editorial columns that any other idea is suggested.

What kind of "public welfare" will you consider? Here,
for example, is William Salisbury, working for the "Chicago
Chronicle," owned by a great banker. Was this banker work-
ing for the public welfare ? He was working for his own wel-
fare so diligently that later on he was sent to jail. Is Mr.
Salisbury working for the public welfare ? No, Mr. Salisbury
is working for an actress, he tells us, and the actress is work-
ing for a diamond ring. Mr. Salisbury comes upon a "tip"
that will earn him the price of the ring. A certain merchant
has conceived the idea of a co-operative department store, an
enterprise which might be of great service to the public; but
if the big department-stores get wind of it, they will kill it.
Mr. Salisbury takes the problem to his city editor, who con-
sults owner Walsh over the telephone, and then tells Mr.
Salisbury to write the story in full.

"The people who are getting this thing up are not advertisers, he
added. "The big department-stores are. Besides, Walsh doesn't
believe in co-operation or municipal ownership, or anything like that,
so go ahead."

I wrote two columns. All the other papers copied the story.

The co-operative department-store was not started. The owners
of the big emporiums in the downtown district joined forces against
it. They got an option on the only available building by greatly over-
bidding thef small merchants. The latter, whose combined capital was
less than the wealth of any one of their powerful rivals, gave up the
fight in despair.

318

The Press and Public Welfabe 319

_ Thus was nipped in the bud by the frost of publicity a project
which might have revolutionized trade — and all because an actress
wanted a bracelet, and a reporter wanted a scoop, and a newspaper
wanted to protect its advertisers.

But sometimes the "Chronicle" was merciful, as Mr. Salis-
bury lets us see. All the newspapers in Chicago were pouring
ridicule upon John Alexander Dowie, a fake religious prophet.

When I returned to the office I offered to write of Dowie's weep-
ing about the birds. That was the only thing that struck me as
unusual. _ Anything that would put Dowie in a ridiculous or unfa-
vorable light was generally wanted by all the papers. But I was told
to write nothing.

"We've just got orders to let up on Dowie," said the city editor.
"Mr. Walsh wants to increase the paper's circulation among the
Dowieites. Our political views have cost us subscribers lately, and we
want to make up for it. If there is any good hot news about Dowie,
of course we'll print it, but not unfavorably.

Maybe you distrust Mr. Salisbury. A man who could
fake so much Journalism might fake one book! Very well;
but here is one of the most eminent sociologists in the country,
a man whose honor is not to be questioned — Prof. E. A. Ross
of the University of Wisconsin. Writing in the "Atlantic
Monthly" for March, 1910, Prof. Ross gives several pages of
incidents of this sort. I quote:

On the desk of every editor and sub-editor of a newspaper run
by a capitalist promoter now under prison sentence lay a list of sixteen
corporations in which the owner was interested. This was to remind
them not to print anything damaging to these concerns. In the office
these corporations were jocularly referred to as "sacred cows."

Nearly every form of privilege is found in the herd of "sacred
cows" venerated by the daily press.

The railroad company is a "sacred cow." At a hearing before a
state railroad commission, the attorney of a shippers' association got
an eminent magnate into the witness chair, with the intention of
wringing from him the truth regarding the political expenditures of
his railroad. At this point the commission, an abject creature of the
railroad, arbitrarily excluded the daring attorney from the case. The
memorable excoriation which that attorney gave the commission to its
face was made to appear in the papers as the cause instead of the
consequence of this exclusion. Subsequently, when the attorney filed
charges with the governor against the commission, one editor wrote
an editorial stating 4he facts and criticizing the commissioners. The
editorial was suppressed after it was in type.

The public-service company is a "sacred, cow." _ In a city of the
Southwest, last summer, while houses were burning from lack of
•water for the fire hose, a lumber company offered to supply the firemen
with water. The water company replied that they had "sufficient"

320 The Bbass Check

Neither this nor other damaging information concerning the company's
conduct got into the columns of the local press. A yellow journal,
conspicuous in the fight for cheaper gas by its ferocious onslaughts on
the "gas trust," suddenly ceased its attack. Soon it began to carry a
full-page "Cook with gas" advertisement. The cow had found the
«itrance to the sacred fold.

Traction is a "sacred cow." The truth about Cleveland's fight for
the three-cent fare has been widely suppressed. For instance, while
Mayor Johnson was superintending the removal of the tracks of a
defunct street railway, he was served with a court order enjoining
him from tearing up the rails. As the injunction was not indorsed, as
by law it should be, he thought it was an ordinary communication,
and put it in his pocket to examine later. The next day he was sum-
moned to show reason why he should not be found in contempt of
court. When the facts came out, he was, of course, discharged. An
examination of seven leading dailies of the country shows that a dis-
patch was sent out from Cleveland stating that Mayor Johnson, after
acknowledging service, pocketed the injunction, and ordered his men
to proceed with their work. In the newspaper-offices this dispatch was
then embroidered. One paper said the mayor told his men to go
ahead and ignore the injunction. Another had the mayor intimating in
advance that he would not obey an order if one were issued. _ A third
invented a conversation in which the mayor and his superintendent
made merry over the injunction. Not one of the seven journals
reported the mayor's complete exoneration later.

And the same thing has been done in every city where rad-
icals of any sort have gained control. Says A. M. Simons,
speaking at a conference of the University of Wisconsin :

The story of the administration of Milwaukee while it was in
Socialist control was a caricature of the truth, so much so that it was
found necessary to establish a weekly bulletin or press service,
scarcely an issue of which did not contain a correction of some news
agency story. Compare the story sent out about Mayor Shank and
the public market in Indianapolis with the almost complete sup-
pression of the fight against the ice trust by the Socialist interests in
Schenectady.

One of the most incredible instances of news suppression
in the interests of Big Business occurred early in 1914, during
the hearings of the Interstate Commerce .Commission. For
three years the newspapers had carried on an elaborate cam-
paign in favor of a five per cent increase in freight rates.
Fifty million dollars a year was at stake, and the roads were
spending millions in advertising their cause in the. newspapers.
The presidents of our biggest railroads appeared before the
Interstate Commerce Commission to tell of the ruin which was
threatened unless the increase were granted. The campaign
was all worked out in advance, the "dope" for the newspapers

The PiiEss and Public Welfare 321

provided ; but there came an unexpected hitch in the proceed-
ings, caused by the appearance of a young man by the name
of Thorne, a member of the State Railway Commission of
Iowa. Mr. Thorne had the finances of all these railroads at
his finger-tips, and he proceeded to cross-question the railroad
presidents and tear their testimony to pieces. He showed that
in twelve years the capitalization of the roads had been
increased ninety-two per cent, and their dividends increased
three hundred and fifty-nine per cent. In the year 1913 their
dividends had been the greatest in history. In 1910 the Penn-
sylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the New York Central
had assured the Interstate Commerce Commission that they
could not borrow money, yet in two years they had borrowed
five hundred million dollars!

Mr. Thorne showed how in their reports just submitted
they had padded their costs. Every locomotive had cost one
hundred and twelve per cent more to maintain in 1913 than it
had cost in 1912. Freight cars had increased thirty-three per
cent in cost, despite the fact that iron and steel were cheaper.
The Interstate Commerce Commission allowed Mr. Thorne to
question all the railroad presidents, and not one of them could
answer him. And what do you think the newspapers did with
this most sensational incident? I take the facts from Charles
Edward Russell, as follows: The "New York World" gave
nearly a column to the testimony of the railroad presidents,
and said not a word about Mr. Thorne! The "New York
Times" gave a full column, and not a word about Thorne!
The "Philadelphia Public Ledger" did the same, and the "Bal-
timore Sun"; the "Cincinnati Inquirer" gave half a column
without mentioning Thorne, and the "Chicago Herald" the
same. (This clipping marked, "By the Associated Press"!)

The hearings were continued.. President Smith of the New
York Central, a Vanderbilt property, took the stand. Mr.
Thorne submitted figures shovying that his road had made
eleven per cent net profit, that it had put by an eleven-million-
dollar surplus, that if its dividends had been properly figured
they would have been fifty-four per cent. President Smith
was absolutely helpless, dumb. And how do you think the
New York newspapers treated that incident ? The "New York
World" gave it this headline: Going to the Devil Fast,
Says Head of New York Central." And not a word about
Thome! Likewise the "New York Times" gave President

21

322 The Brass Check

Smith's testimony in full, and nothing about Thome ! The
"Philadelphia Public Ledger," the "Baltimore Sun," the
"Chicago Herald" the same. ("By the Associated Press"!)

And next day came the president of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. He, too, was helpless in the hands of Mr. Thome ;
he admitted that he had made a stock allotment of forty-five
million dollars; but again the same papers did not mention
the matter. And next day came the vice-president of the
"Baltimore & Ohio," and the same thing happened. All over
the country the newspapers were full of articles portraying a
railroad panic, our greatest roads "going to the devil," accord-
ing to the sworn testimony of their officials^and never one
word about State Railroad Commissioner Thorne of Iowa!

All these are positive acts; and now for a moment con-
sider the negative — the good things that newspapers might do
and don't! I could write a volume dealing with plans and
social possibilities known to me, whereby the life of mankind
might be made over ; but you might as well start to fly to the
moon as ask a capitalist newspaper to take these things up.
For example, the idea of a co-operative home, as tried at
Helicon Hall; or the idea set forth by Edgar Chambless in
his book, "Roadtown." Did you ever hear of "Roadtown"?
The chances are ninety-nine out of a hundred that you never
did. If you are near a library, you may look it up in the
"Independent," May 5, 1910. I will say in brief that it is a
plan which won the approval of the best engineers, to build a
city in a way that would save seventy per cent of the necessary
labor of mankind forever after, and increase by several hun-
dred per cent the total of human happiness. You did not find
this plan "boosted" by capitalist newspapers — because its in-
ventor sternly refused all propositions to exploit it for profit,
and insisted upon preserving the idea for the free use and
benefit of humanity.

CHAPTER LI
THE PRESS AND THE RADICALS

If you go into a New York club in the middle of August,
you will be told in entire good faith that "everybody" is out of
town. It is this "everybody" who is but of town in August
that American Journalism knows and serves. Those who
stay in town in August are "nobody," and have to take their
chances with the newspapers, as with everything else in capi-
talist society. Imagine yourself a poor devil, caught in a set of
circumstances which cause the city editor of some newspaper,
after five minutes consideration, to make up his mind that you
are guilty of a crime! Trial by a city editor in five minutes,
and execution in columns of illustrated slander — ^that is our
American system of jurisprudence. In the city of Atlanta, a
Jewish manufacturer of pencils was tried for rape and murder.
He was quite evidently innocent, but it happens that the "poor
whites" of the South are jealous of the commercial keenness
of the Jews; the politicians of the South want the votes of
these "poor whites," and the "yellow" journals want their
pennies; so this poor wretch was hounded by the newspapers
for several months, and finally was hanged.

But it is for the poor devil become class-conscious, and
protesting against injustice to his class, that our Journalism
reserves its deadliest venom. It is when the Radical steps
upon the scene that the hunting-pack joins in full cry. Then
every prejudice, every hatred in the whole journalistic
psychology becomes focused as by a burning-glass upon one
centre. The hatred of the staff, men who have sold their
honor, and take bold truth-telling for a personal insult; the
hatred of the owner, whose life-time gains are threatened;
the hatred of the advertiser who supports the paper, of the
banker who handles its funds, of the politician who betrays
the state to it — all these various hatreds mass themselves, they
form what the foot-ball player knows as a "V," they "rush"
this enemy and bovsrl him over and trample him under their
feet.

Any kind of radical, it makes no difference; anyone who

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324 The Brass Check

advocates a change in anything, who expresses discontent with
the system of legalized plunder and repression. Six or seven
years ago Mrs. Pankhurst came from England in the interest
of militant suffrage. The American people had read about
Mrs. Pankhurst, and wanted to know what she looked like,
and what she was going to do in America. A New York paper
came out with a report to the effect that Mrs. Pankhurst,
before being allowed to land in New York, had been required
by the Federal authorities to give a pledge that she would not
engage in militancy in America. This report was cabled to
London, where it was hailed with glee by Mrs. Pankhurst's
opponents; Lloyd George made a speech about it, and this
speech was cabled to America by the Associated Press, and
thus widely spread in the. American papers. Mrs. Pankhurst
stated to me personally that she had been asked for no such
pledge, and had given no such pledge, and that all her efforts
to have this false report corrected by the New York news-
papers and by the Associated Press had been in vain.

Such was the treatment of a "militant" leader. You say,
perhaps, "Well, nobody cares about those militants." If so,
let us hear one of those who vehemently opposed "militancy."
I write to Mrs. Alice Stone Blackwell, and she replies :

For many years, the news carried by the great press agencies on
the subject of woman suffrage was habitually twisted, and the twist
was almost always unfavorable to suffrage. As editor for a long
time of the "Woman's Journal," and later as one of the editors of
the "Woman Citizen," I had constant occasion to observe this, and I
commented upon it repeatedly. The thing happened so often as to
make it impossible to explain it as accident or coincidence.

As an extreme instance, take the following: Every time that the
woman suffrage bill was defeated in the British House of Commons,
the fact was promptly cabled to this country; but when the bill finally
passed — an event which both friends and opponents of suffrage were
awaiting with great interest — not , one of the papers in the United
States that are served by the Associated Press gave the news!

In my suffrage work, I learned beyond question that the news
coming through the great press agencies was colored and distorted;
and if this has been done on one subject, it has doubtless been done
on others. A good many women, I think, learned a wholesome
distrust of press reports during the suffrage struggle.

And now let us hear some radicals of the male sex. Hiram
Johnson of California is a radical. In "Everybody's Maga-
zine" during 1908 there appeared an interview which had been
submitted to him and printed with his corrections. Sixteen

The Press and the Radicals 325

newspapers published on their front page the report that
Governor Johnson had repudiated this interview ; and when he
declared that the report was false, they refused to correct it.
Charles Zueblin is a radical — a very quiet and conservative
one, who lectures on municipal ownership to ladies' clubs. I
write to ask him what his experiences have been, and he tells
me they are "too personal to be quoted." He gives me one
illustration, which I take the liberty of quoting:

The "Kansas City Journal" has pursued me every season I lecture
there because it is an organ of the local public utilities. At one time
they twisted some statement of mine in a report of a lecture which
they headed: "Zueblin Believes Every Woman Should Marry a
Negro." There was no doubt this was done solely to queer other
things that might be said which had no connection with this invention.

Senator La Follette is a radical — and here is a public man
who has been almost wiped out by deliberate newspaper boy-
cott. The story of what was done to La Follette in the 1913
presidential campaign can hardly be made to sound like reality ;
it is a plot out of an old-time Bowery melodrama. La Follette
was a candidate for the Republican nomination. He was con-
ducting a tremendous campaign all through the Middle West,
and the Associated Press was suppressing the news of it. At
an open conference of newspaper-men, held at the University
of Wisconsin, the editor of the "Milwaukee Journal," a strong
capitalist paper, openly stated that the Associated Press was
sending — "something, of course — ^but so little that it amounted
to nothing." But when the governor of the state made an
attack upon La Follette — "Well, the Associated Press sud-
denly woke up, and sent out that entire address word for
word!"

Nevertheless, La Follette was winning, and stood an excel-
lent chance to get the nomination. He was invited to a dinner
of the Periodical Publishers' Association in Philadelphia, and
at that dinner he told a little about the control of newspapers
by the big advertising agencies — such facts as fill Chapter
XL VII of this book. After the dinner was over the news-
paper-men got together on the proposition, and decided that
they would end the career of La Follette that night. They
cooked up an elaborate story, describing how he had raged
and foamed at the mouth, and rambled on and on for hours,
until the diners had got up and left him orating to the empty
seats and dinner-plates. It was evident, said the story, sym-

336 The Beass Check

pathetically, that La FoUette was suffering from over-work
and exhaustion; his mind was failing, and he would be com-
pelled to retire from public life. After that, by deliberate
arrangement, the Washington correspondents reported not a
line of anything that La Follette wrote or said for a couple of
years !

Again, during the war, they did the same thing to him.
He made a speech before the Nonpartisan Convention in St.
Paul, denouncing bitterly the war profiteers, who were being
protected by our big newspapers. The Associated Press took
this speech and doctored it, as a means of making La Follette
odious to the country. They had to make such a slight change
in it! La Follette said, "We had grievances against the Ger-
man government." And all the Associated Press had to do
was to slip in one little word, "We had no grievances against
the German government!" The whole country rose up to
execrate La Follette, and the United States Senate ordered
him placed on trial. When it came to a show-down, they
discovered they had nothing against him, and dropped the
case, and the Associated Press, after many months' delay and
heavy pressure from La Follette, finally admitted that it had
rnisquoted him, and made a public apology.

And then La Follette came before the people for their
verdict on his conduct. He carried the state by a vote of
110,064 to 70,813 ; but the big capitalist newspapers of Mil-
waukee deliberately held back the returns favorable to him,
and on election night the story was telegraphed all over the
country that the La Follette ticket had been overwhelmed.
The leading Chicago newspapers reported the election of
twenty out of twenty-six anti-La Follette delegates, and the
repudiation of La Follette by "an overwhelming majority of
Wisconsin voters." Next morning there followed editorials
in all the leading Wall Street organs, gloating over this defeat.
And, as usual in newspaper practice, this first story got all the
space that the subject was worth; the later news of La
Follette's victory was "buried."

CHAPTER LII

THE PRESS AND THE SOCIALISTS

The particular kind of radical who is most disliked by our
newspapers is of course the Socialist. The Socialist meets the
class-consciousness of the newspapers with another class-
consciousness, almost as definite and aggressive. The Socialist
is noisy; also the Socialist has a habit of printing pamphlets
and leaflets, thus trespassing on newspaper profits. Every
newspaper differs in the names it puts on its "son-of-a-bitch
list," but every newspaper agrees in putting the most con-
spicuous Socialists on its "son-of-a-bitch list." The Hearst
newspapers pose as friends of the people; they print a great
deal of radical clamor, but there is a standing order in all
Hearst offices that American Socialism shall never be men-
tioned favorably. All newspapers have a rule that if any
Socialist get into trouble, it shall be exploited to the full;
when Socialists don't get into trouble often enough to suit
them, they make Socialists out of people' who do get into
trouble. Says Max Sherover:

When the King of Greece was shot by an insane and irresponsible
man, the "New York Times" and hundreds of other papers ran the
headline : "King of Greece Assassinated by a Socialist." And
although it was proven conclusively that the assassin hadn't even
heard of Socialism, none of these papers saw fit to retract their lie.

When the great novelist, David Graham Phillips, was shot by one
• Goldsborough, every paper in New York knew that Goldsborough not
only was not a Socialist, but had often spoken against Socialism.
They also knew that the latter had a personal grievance against the
author. Notwithstanding these facts, the "New York World" and
other papers came out with headlines : "David Gkaham Phillips
Shot by Socialist." None of the papers retracted that lie.

When Theodore Roosevelt was shot at in Milwaukee, the Asso-
ciated Press sent broadcast the news that a Socialist had assaulted the
Colonel. Though it was proven by the evidence of the assailant's own
statement that he was an affiliated member of a Democratic organiza-
tion in New York, that he had always voted the Democrat ticket, the
"New York Evening Telegram" ran the headline: "Roosevelt Shot
BY Socialist." This the "Telegram" never retracted.

Perhaps the most tragic illustration of this kind of thing
was the "Chicago Anarchists." There were one or two

337

328 The Bkass Check

Anarchists among them; the rest were Socialists, perfectly
innocent working-class educators, who were railroaded to the
gallows by public hysteria, deliberately incited by the news-
papers of Chicago. Finley Peter Dvmne, creator of "Mr.
Dooley," was a reporter on one of these newspapers, and ten
or twelve years ago he narrated to me some of the things he
had witnessed, the most outrageous inventions deliberately
cooked up. His voice trembled as he told about it. I asked
him why he did not write the story, and his answer was that
he had often tried to write it, but was blinded by his own
tears.

The same thing was done in the Debs railway strike of
1893. Every act of violence that was committed was hailed
by the newspapers of the country as part of a terrorist cam-
paign by the labor-unions. Therefore the public permitted
Grover Cleveland to smash this strike. Afterwards Qeve-
land's commission of investigation put the chief of police of
Chicago on the witness-stand, and heard him testify that the
Railway Managers' Association had hired "thugs, thieves, and
ex-convicts" as their deputies, and that these men had set fire
to freight-cars, and had cut the hose of the Chicago firemen.

It would not be too much to say that American capitalist
newspapers sent Eugene V. Debs to jail in 1893 and made him
into a Socialist. And now in 19'19, when he is sent to jail
again, they help to keep him there ! On the day that he is sent
to prison, they spread wide an interview to the effect that he
will call a general strike of labor to get himself out of jail;
and this interview is quoted by the Attorney-General as reason
for refusing amnesty to Debs. But Debs gave no such inter-
view. He denied it as soon as he saw it, but of course you did
not see his denial, unless you are a reader of the Socialist
papers.

The "Appeal to Reason" is preparing to have a suit brought
against the Associated Press on this issue. It reprints a letter
from Debs to the general manager of the Associated Press,
written in 1913, protesting against a false story to the effect
that the "Appeal" is suspending publication. This report,
obviously a great injury to the "Appeal," the Associated Press
refused to deny. Says Debs:

Am I to infer from your letter that the Associated Press aims to
deal fairly, honestly and justly with all people, to disseminate the

The Pbess and the Socialists 339

truth, and taboo what is false? I happen to know differently by per-
sonal experience. If there is in this country a strictly capitalist class
institution it is the Associated Press.

Pardon me if I give you just an instance or two of my personal
experience. During the heat of the Pullman strike, when the Pullman
cars were under boycott, the Associated Press sent out a dispatch
over all the country that I had ridden out of Chicago like a royal
prince in a Pullman Palace car while my dupes were left to walk the
ties. A hundred witnesses who were at the depot when I left testified
that the reportwas a lie, but I could never get the Associated Press to
correct it. This lie cost me more pain and trouble than you can well
imagine, and for it all I have to thank the Associated Press, and I
have not forgotten it.

During the last national campaign, at a time when I was away
from home, the Associated Press spread a report over the country to
the effect liiat scab labor had been employed to do some work at my
home. _ It was a lie, and so intended. I had the matter investigated by
the chief union organizer of the district, who reported that it was a
lie, but I was never able to have the correction put upon the wires.
That lie is still going to this day, and for that, and still others I could
mention, I have also to thank the capitalistically owned and controlled
Associated Press.

You might think this a pretty small lie for a big organiza-
tion like the Associated Press to bother with ; but if you think
that, you do not know the Associated Press. Hardly ever do
I mention this organization to a radical that I do not hear a
new story, frequently just such a petty and spiteful story as
the non-union labor in the home of Eugene Debs. In Pasa-
dena lives my friend Gaylord Wilshire, and I mention the
Associated Press to him, and he laughs. "Did I ever tell you
my story of York, Pennsylvania?" "What did you do in
York, Pennsylvania?" "Nothing," says Wilshire; "that's the
story." It appears that he was on a Socialist lecture-tour, and
the schedule was badly arranged, the trains were late, and so
he cut out York, Pennsylvania, and on the date in question was
up in Maine. But the Associated Press sent broadcast over
the country a detailed report that the editor of "Wilshire's
Magazine" had spoken in York, Pennsylvania, had denounced
the courts, had offered ten thousand dollars for a debate with
Mark Hanna, and had been mobbed by the citizens of York !

You will say, perhaps, that this must have been a mistake.
Yes, but how comes it that the Associated Press makes all its
mistakes one way ? Why is there never a mistake favorable to
a Socialist? Why does not the Associated Press report that
Gene Debs has rescued a child from drowning; or that Gaylord

330 The Bbass Check

Wilshire has been awarded a gold medal by a chamber of
commerce ; or that Upton Sinclair has been made a bishop of
the Episcopal Church for writing "The Profits of Religion"?
One of the most interesting illustrations of newspaper
lying about Socialists occurred during a May-day meeting in
Union Square, New York, a few years ago. It is interesting
because we may go behind the scenes and watch the wires being
pulled. It appears that police arrangements for this meeting
were in charge of Chief Inspector Schmittberger, an old-style
Tammany clubber; but he could not handle the affair in the
usual fashion of the New York police, because the administra-
tion of Mayor Mitchel had ordained "free speech." Schmitt-
berger had his clubbers hidden in an excavation of the subway,
ready to sally forth when the meeting gave excuse. But the
meeting did not give excuse, and some of the policemen grew
impatient, and sallied out without orders and started clubbing.
My friend Isaac Russell, who was reporting the day's events
for the "New York Times," was standing by Schmittberger's
side, and heard him shout to these unauthorized clubbers.
Says Russell:

I ran beside Schmittberger into the fracas, and he yanked and
pulled cops over backwards to break up the thing. And finally he got
them under control, and then gave them fits for acting without orders.

Russell, being an honest man, went back to the "Times"
office, and wrote a story of how the New York police had been
seized by a panic, and had broken out without orders; and
that story went through. But it happened that up in the edito-
rial rooms of the "Times" somebody was writing the conven-
tional "Times" editorial, denouncing the Socialists for their
May-day violence, and praising the police for their heroism.
It never occurred to the editorial writer that the news editors
could be so careless as to pass a story like Isaac Russell's ! So
next day here was this comical discrepancy, and an organiza-
tion of magazine editors, the "Ragged Edge Qub," invited
Isaac Russell to come and explain to them the war between
the news columns and the editorial columns of the "Times"!
Russell was called up before his boss and, as he says, "roasted
to a frazzle" for having written the truth. Arthur Greaves,
city editor of the "Times," told him that he had "got off all
wrong in that situation." But Russell's job was saved — and
how do you think? The police commissioner of New York

The Press and the Socialists 331

came out with a formal statement, denouncing the police, and
saying that they had acted contrary to his orders !

Or take the experience of A. M. Simons, reporting an
International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, Germany, for
the United Press, supposed to be a liberal organization.
Simons received a dispatch from the London headquarters of
his organization:

Wire three hundred words on probable split of Congress into
Bebelists, Herveists, and Laborites.

And Simons continues:

Now, there was not a single human being in that congress that
ever dreamed there would be a split. The particular question oil
which they were supposed to split was passed by a unanimous vote. I
sent a straight news story out. At the close I put these three words :
. "Split talk rot." Judge of my surprise when I landed in New York
to find that that story of the split of the Socialist Congress had been
carried over the United Press wires to the paper I was serving!

And now, as this book is going to press, on November 11th,
1919, the Associated Press sends from the town of Centralia,
Washington, a series of dispatches telling how I. W. W. mem-
bers fired from windows of their meeting hall upon an Armis-
tice Day parade of returned soldier-boys. The dispatch does
not say directly that the firing was done in cold blood; it
simply tells in elaborate detail about the firing, and says not
one word about incidents occurring before the firing. It
leaves it to be assumed that the firing was done in cold blood,
and the whole country does assume that, and a perfect frenzy
seizes the returned soldiers and the government authorities;
they raid I. W. W. meeting rooms in a hundred places, and
beat up the members and throw them into jail. And I who un-
derstand the infamies of our Journalism wait patiently, know-
ing that in due course the truth will begin to leak. And sure
enough, three days later comes an Associated Press dispatch
from Centralia, Washington, mentioning, quite casually and
incidentally, that Dr. Frank Bickford, one of the marchers,
testified at the coroner's inquest that "the former soldiers
attacked the I. W. W. hall before any shots were fired."- And
the Hearst service reports the same news with the comment
that "no special significance was attached to this testimony"!
Later : It appears that the soldiers were battering in the
door, and the first shots were fired through it.

CHAPTER LIII
THE PRESS AND SEX

There is a whole field of problems connected with our
sex-nature v/hich we are only beginning to explore. Metch-
nikoff has told us something. Freud and Jung have told us
more; but long after we have solved our economic problems
we shall still be seeking knowledge about sex. And meantime
men and women grope blindly, and are betrayed into entangle-
ments and misunderstandings and cruel miseries. If they
happen to be ordinary, respectable citizens, they keep these
things under cover. If they are radicals, trying to square their
preaching and their practice, they will get into weird and
awful predicaments, and then there will be sport for predatory
Journalism !

I have told you the stories of Maxim Gorky, of George D.
Herron, of Upton Sinclair. How many such stories would you
care to hear? Would you care to hear about Charlotte Per-
kins Gilman? About Thorstein Veblen? About Jack London,
Reginald Wright Kauflfman, Clarence Darrow? About Marion
Craig Wentworth, Mary Ware Dennett, Gaylord Wilshire,
Oscar Lovell Triggs, George Sterling? This that I am giving
you is not a list of the vital spirits of our time ; it is merely a
list of persons of my acquaintance who happen to have been
caught upon the hook of an unhappy marriage, gutted, skinned
alive, and laid quivering on the red-hot griddle of Capitalist
Journalism.

I will tell you a story told to me only the other day. The
man asks me not to give his name ; he is trying to forget. Poor
fellow, as he talks about it, I see the color creep into his fore-
head, I see his hands begin to shake — all the symptoms I
remember so well ! I ask him : "Do you start in your sleep,
as if someone had touched a live nerve? Do you cry aloud,
and carry on long discourses through the night?"

A few years ago this man was a popular "extension" lec-
turer in Chicago ; anywhere in the Middle West he chose to go
he could have a couple of thousand people to listen to him.

333

The Pjiess and Sex 333

He was unhappily married; his wife was living with another
man, and desired a divorce. When this happens in Chicago,
they usually agree upon the charge of "cruelty" ; their friends,
and likewise all Chicago newspaper editors, perfectly under-
stand that this is a conventional charge, having no necessary
relation to the facts. I have quoted the case of Mr. Booth
Tarkington, returning from Europe and saying to the news-
paper reporters, with a smile, "When one's wife accuses one
of cruelty, no gentleman would think of replying." The
reporters all understood what that meant, and the public which
read it appreciated Mr. Tarkington's tact. Mr. Tarkington,
you see, is a novelist whose work involves no peril to the
profit system; therefore Mr. Tarkington's wife could charge
him with "cruelty," without Mr. Tarkington's reputation being
destroyed and the sale of his books wiped out. A recent item
sent out by Mr. Tarkington's publishers — Messrs. Harper &
Brothers, with the eight hundred thousand dollar mortgage
reposing in the vaults of J. P. Morgan & Company — stated
that they had sold a total of 1,334,900 copies of Mr. Tarking-
ton's novels.

But it was entirely different with this Chicago lecturer;
this man, you see, was a Socialist, and therefore a menace to
mortgages. In a lecture-room the question came up of a
teacher who had switched a child ; the speaker remarked play-
fully that the cave-man had been accustomed to inflict
discipline with a club, and that boys, according to biology,
were in the cave-man stage of development. So next day the
readers of a yellow journal in Chicago read a scare headline
about a "highbrow" society lecturer who was preaching "cave-
man philosophy" to his students, and applying "cave-man treat-
ment" to his wife, so that she was divorcing him for cruelty !
Half a dozen such yarns at this were piled in quick succession
upon the head of this Socialist lecturer, with the result that his
career was ruined.

By way of contrast, let me tell you about another man —
proprietor of a great department-store in New York. I will
not name him; he is a worm, poor in everything but money.
It happened that through mutual friends I knew about his
private life; he kept numerous mistresses, and flaimted them
boldly on the "Great White Way," starting them on showy
theatrical careers, and otherwise making himself a joke to the

334 The Bbass Check

"Tenderloin." This man's wife divorced him for his infideli-
ties; and what do you think happened? What did the news-
papers do ? Not a line about the matter in any newspaper of
New York City !

To some of the rules which I lay down in this book there
are exceptions. It is sometimes possible for a radical to be
quoted honestly by a capitalist newspaper ; it is sometimes pos-
sible to get news unfavorable to the profit-system into the
most reactionary sheet. But to the following two rules there
is no exception anywhere :

Rule 1. Any proprietor of a department-store anywhere
in America may divorce, or be divorced, with entire immtmity
so far as concerns the press.

Rule 2. No radical in America can divorce or be divorced
without being gutted, skinned alive, and placed on the red-hot
griddle of Capitalist Journalism.

I will tell you about another Chicago Socialist whom I
have mentioned — Oscar Lovell Triggs. Fifteen or twenty
years ago Triggs was the most popular man in the faculty of
Mr. Rockefeller's University of Chicago; they had to get
extra-sized class-rooms for his lectures, and so there was
jealousy of him — camouflaged, of course, as opposition to
Socialism. Triggs was so indiscreet as to live in a radical
colony in Chicago. He was asked to give an interview on
some subject or another, and the reporter, going down the
hallway of the community building, made note of the fact
that in the next room there hung some silk stockings and a
pink kimono. So he went off and wrote a cunningly devised
and highly suggestive story about silk stockings and a pink
kimono in the room adjoining that of the Chicago college
professor.

Here was a scandal, of course; and Triggs was expected
to fight it. But, as it happened, Triggs was unhappily married,
his wife was living with an artist in Paris, and desired a
divorce. Any divorce lawyer will tell you that men who are
thus caught on the hook are prone to strange and reckless
rushes. Triggs, whose wife wanted a divorce, decided that
this story would serve as well as anything. A friend who
lived in the building at the time, and knew Triggs intimately,
assures me that there was not a word of truth in the insinua-
tions, there was nothing between Triggs and the young lady

The Press and Sex 335

of the silk stockings and the pink kimono. Nevertheless, this
most popular professor of literature was driven out of the
university, and set to work as a common laborer on a
California chicken-ranch.

I write to ask him to verify the details of this story ; I ask,
him to be heroic, and let me tell the story, in the interest of
the public welfare. He gives the permission, adding the
following comment :

In this statement, you speak of only one detail — the last one. But
the real story involves what amounted to a conspiracy against me in
the two years preceding my retirement from the university. This
consisted in so reporting lectures and statements that a very quiet and
reasonable scholar came to be regarded as a "freak professor." No
one could stand up against this kind of attack and retain a position in
a conventional university. I never could get to the bottom of it. It is
a poor way to treat human material, but so be it.

Maybe you distrust the radicals ; they are all "free lovers,"
you say ; they deserve their marital unhappiness, they deserve
exposure and humiliation. Well, then, suppose I tell you
about some respectable person? Suppose I tell you about the
President of the United States, secure in the sanctity of the
White House? Will that convince you?

You didn't happen to know that the "Scandal Bureau" had
prepared a story on Woodrow Wilson ! The "interests," which
wanted war with Germany and Mexico, had a scandal all ready
to spring on him toward the end of the 1916 campaign. They
had the dynamite planted, the wires laid; all they had to do
was to press the button. At the last moment their nerve failed
them, they did not press the button. I was told why by a
prominent Republican leader, who was present in the councils
of the party when the final decision was made. This man
pounded on the table and declared : "I'd have said I'd sooner
vote for the devil than for Woodrow Wilson, but if you start a
dirty story on the President of the United States, I'll vote for
Woodrow Wilson, and one or two million Americans will do
likewise."

Their nerve failed them ; but some steps they had already
taken, and you may trace their footprints if you are curious.
There were dark hints in many newspapers, and if you saw
the Washington correspondence of London papers during the
fall of 1916, you found more than hints. For example, heret

336 The Brass Check

is James Davenport Whelpley, a well-known journalist, writing
in the "Fortnightly Review," one of the most dignified of
English monthlies :

Another issue has come to the fore in the American political

campaign quite unusual in American politics With all the

freedom that is given to the American Press, and with all the per-
nicious intrusion into private affairs that finds expression in the
columns of American newspapers, it has been many years since the
personality of a candidate has played any part in the publicity work
of a campaign, no matter how great the temptation may have been to
use material at hand. In reading American newspapers today, how-
ever, much can be gleaned from between the lines. Something seems
to be struggling against precedent and unwritten rules for clear expres-
sion, and that something finds itself articulate in the communications
of man to man.

And then Mr. Whelpley goes on to tell about "elections
being won and lost at the last moment by psychological waves
which have swept across the national mind, swamping on their
way the political hopes of one or the other candidate." So
Mr. Whelpley is unable to predict the re-election of Woodrow
Wilson !

More definite even than this, there was a story in
"McClure's Magazine," which had already gone to press, and
could not be recalled. "McClure's," now a tool of the
"interests," was conducting a raging campaign for "prepared-
ness," and Wilson stood in the way. The story was called
"That Parkinson Affair," by Sophie Kerr, and was published
in the issue of September, 1916 — just when the scandal was
ready to be sprung. It is ostensibly a piece of fiction, but so
transparent that no child could fail to recognize it. It is the
vilest piece of innuendo in American political history, and
remains on our library shelves as a monumental example of
the depths to which our predatory interests have been willing
to drag their "kept" magazines.

When the big magazines were bought up by the "interests,"
we were solemnly assured that the purpose was to put an end
to "scandal-mongering." But now it appears that the purpose
was not to lay the "muck-rake" on the shelf, but merely to
turn it against the friends of human progress !

CHAPTER LIV
THE PRESS AND CRIME

You guess that this chapter will show how the press
exploits crime for its profit; and that sounds tiresome, you
know all about that. You know how the yellow journals take
up murder cases and divorce cases and sexual irregularities,
and carry on campaigns of scandal, lasting for months. You
know how they send out their amateur sleuths, and work up a
case against some one, and make it a matter of journalistic
prestige that this person shall be hounded to jail.

No; this chapter does not deal with the crimes which the
press exploits, nor yet with the crimes which it invents. I
could tell a hilarious anecdote of a group of New York
reporters assigned to the immigration service, shy of news
and bored to death, who cooked up a tale of an imaginary
murder by an imaginary Austrian countess, kept all New York
thrilled for a week, and "got away with it." But all that is
comparatively nothing. The theme of this chapter is the
crimes which the press commits.

What is a crime ? The definition is difficult ; you have to
know first who commits it. Many things are crimes if done
by workingmen, which are virtuous public services if done by
great corporations. | It is a crime when workingmen conspire
to boycott; but it is no crime when newspapers do it, when
advertisers do it. It is a crime when an individual threatens
blackmail ; but when a great newspaper does it, it is business
enterprise. For example, in Los Angeles there was started a
municipal newspaper, which was thriving. Gen. Harrison
Gray Otis of the "Times" sent agents to various advertisers to
notify them that if they continued to advertise in this paper
they would be boycotted, black-listed, and put out of business.
So the big advertisers deserted the municipal paper.

I have told in this book about many crimes committed by
newspapers against myself ; not metaphorical crimes, but lit-
eral, legal crimes. It was a crime when a Philadelphia reporter
broke into my home and stole a photograph. It was a crime
when the "New York Evening Journal" sent forged cable-

22 337

338 The Brass Check

grams to Dr. James P. Warbasse and Mrs. Jessica Finch Cos-
grave. It was a crime when the newspapers of New York
bribed a court-clerk to give them the testimony in my divorce
case. Any lawyer will tell you that these things are crimes,
yet they are a recognized part of the practice of American
Journalism, and follow logically and inevitably from the com-
petitive sale of news.

Nietzsche says of the soul of man that it "hungers after
knowledge as the lion for his food." Just so the yellow
journals hunger after news, and just so their proprietors
hunger after profits. When profits are at stake, they stop at
nothing. I have quoted Hearst's telegram to Frederick Rem-
ington : "You make the pictures and I'll make the war." I
have told of Hearst's ruffian conduct towards myself in the
case of Adelaide Branch. Do you think that a man who would
commit such acts would stop at anything? When Hearst ven-
tured to run for governor of New York State, his enemies
brought out against him a mass of evidence, showing that he
had deliberately organized his newspapers so that the cor-
porations which published them owned no property, and chil-
dren who had been run down and crippled for life by Mr.
Hearst's delivery-wagons could collect no damages from him.

Mr. Hearst poses as a friend of labor, but he keeps his
newspapers on a non-union basis, and when his employes go-
on strike, he treats them as other corporations treat their
strikers. And all newspaper corporations do the same. I
could name not one, but several cities in which newspapers
have hired thugs to break the strikes of newsboys; or where
they have hired strikes against their rivals. During the Colo-
rado coal-strike the "Denver Express" was publishing the
truth about the strike, and the other newspapers organized a
boycott of the dealers who handled the "Express." When the
"Express" hired its own newsboys, mysterious gangs of row-
dies appeared, and beat up these newsboys and scattered their
papers in the streets. And no interference from the police, no
line about these riots in any Denver newspaper— except the
"Express," which could not get distributed!

Wherever you dig in the cellars of these great predatory
institutions, you find buried skeletons. I have dragged some
of them into the light of day; I would drag others — ^but the
test her;e is not what I know to be true, but what I can prove
in a court of law. And it is so easy for a great newspaper to

The Peess and Crime 339

buy witnesses; so easy for a great newspaper to terrorize
witnesses ! I came upon one typical story that I could prove,
and prove to the hilt ; I prepared to tell the story, with names
and places and dates, but while I was collecting the evidence, a
friend of the victim exclaimed: "You will ruin him! You
will set the newspaper after him again !"

This man, a former city official, an honest public servant,
had been deliberately ruined by a newspaper conspiracy, and
brought to utter despair. The thing happened six years ago,
and only now is he beginning to recover his practice as a
lawyer. If now I revive this story, he will take up his morning
paper and read something like this : "The defendant was rep-
resented by John Jones, who a few years ago was indicted —
etc." Or : "The striking carpenters have retained John Jones,
who was once city prosecutor, and concerning whom several
witnesses testified — etc., etc." Shall I inflict this upon a man,
in spite of his wishes ? I thought the matter over from many
angles, and decided to ask the reader to accept the story on my
word. Really, it is too incredible a story to be an invention !
Listen :

John Jones, city prosecutor, caused the arrest of the
proprietor of a great and powerful newspaper for printing
salacious advertisements. He forced this newspaper to make
abject public apology, and to promise reform. Later he caused
the arrest of the proprietor for criminal libel ; whereupon this
proprietor set out to "get" the city prosecutor. The paper had
a "literary editor," a man who has since become well-known
as a critic and novelist, author of perhaps a dozen books. At
this time his salary was thirty dollars a week, and he was told
by the proprietor of the newspaper to go and "get" John Jones,
using either wine or women.

A woman was brought on from the Middle West, a woman
just one month under twenty-one, which is the "age of con-
sent" in the state in question. This woman sought a city
position from John Jones, came to his office, threw her
arms about his neck, and screamed. Instantly the door was
broken in, and it was made known that "sleuths" had bored a
hole through the office-wall, and were prepared to testify that
they had seen John Jones committing a crime with this woman
under age.

Now, I hear you say, with a knowing smile, "That's the
story John Jones tells !" No, reader, I assure you I am not so

340 The Beass Check

naive ; I did not get this story from John Jones, I did not get
it from any friend of John Jones. It happens that I know the
"literary editor" fairly well, and I know a dozen of his friends.
To one of these, an intimate friend of mine, this "literary
editor" told the entire story. Two friends of mine were
present at a club dinner, when the man was confronted by
accident with his victim, and admitted what he had done, and
begged pardon for it. It was his "job," he said — his "job" of
thirty dollars a week ! And that is how I came on the story 1
I go over in my mind the newspapers concerning which I
can make the statement that I know, either from direct 'per-
sonal knowledge, or from the evidence of a friend whom I
trust, that the owner or manager of this paper has committed
a definite act of crime for which, if the laws were enforced,
the owner or manager would be sent to the penitentiary. I
count a total of fifteen such papers, located in leading Ameri-
can cities, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago,
San Francisco, Los Angeles. Each one of these criminals sits
in a seat of powei" and poisons the thinking of hundreds of
thousands of helpless people. I ask myself: In what respect
is the position of these people different from that of the peas-
antry of mediaeval Germany, who lived and labored subject to
raids from robber knights and barons whose castles they saw
upon distant cliffs and mountain tops ?

CHAPTER LV
THE PRESS AND JACK LONDON

I once had the pleasure of hearing Jack London express
his opinion of American Journalism ; it was a picturesque and
vivid experience, a sort of verbal aurora borealis. Not wish-
ing to trust to my memory of the incidents, I write to Mrs.
London, and she sends me a huge scrap-book, the journalistic
adventures of Jack London during the year 1906. I open it,
arid the first thing 1 come upon is a clipping from the "St.
Louis Post-Dispatch," with a picture of Mrs. London which is
not Mrs. London! Then, a couple of pages on, a clipping
from the "New Haven Palladium," with a picture of Jack
London which is not Jack London!

They just take any old picture, you understand, and slap
your name under it. I have seen Jack London's picture serv-
ing for me, and I have seen my own picture serving for a
vaudeville actor. As I write, the "Los Angeles Times" comes
to my desk, with a scare-headline all the way across the page :
"Britain Defies Union Labor Threat, of Revolution."
It appears that the miners are preparing a general strike, and
the "Los Angeles Times," wishing to make them odious, pub-
lishes on its front page a large portrait, with this caption:
"Trying to Throw Britain Off Balance. Robert Smillie,
Brains of the Triple Alliance of Powerful Labor Unions,
Seeking Social and Economic Revolution in the United King-
dom." The portrait shows a foreign -looking individual with
straggly beard and tousled hair, wearing a Russian blouse. It
is Abram Krylenko, commander-in-chief of the Russian Bol-
shevist armies! If you are near a library you may find the
picture in the "Outlook," Vol. 118, p. 254; or in the "Inde-
pendent," Vol. 93, p. 405 ; or in the "Metropolitan Magazine"
for October, 1919. A picture of Smillie appears in "Current
Opinion" for August, 1919— an entirely conventional-looking
Englishman !

To return to Jack London: This was the year that
Charmian and Jack got married. It was in Chicago, and the
Hearst paper of that city reported it in this chaste fashion:

341

342 The Brass Check

jack london wins in battle for a bride.

Messenger-boys, Telephones, Korean Valet, Political^ Influence, Plead-
ings, Many Explanations, and_ a Special Dispensation
Finally Won a Marriage License on
Sunday for Jack London.

And then next day the Hearst reporters discovered that
this marriage was not legal ; Jack was liable to three years in
jail ; so, as a matter of precaution, he was going to be married
in every state in the Union 1 All over the country this story
was telegraphed; such trifling with a sacred institution dis-
pleased certain women's clubs in Iowa, which canceled their
engagements to hear Jack London lecture! Returning to his
home after these excitements, I, find Jack being interviewed by
the "Oakland Herald."

That report was all the imagination of the Qiicago reporters who
were scooped on the wedding story. There was nothing in that at all.

Later on Jack took another trip to the East, and delivered
his famous address, "Revolution," which you may find in his
volume "Revolution and Other Essays." He is describing
the feelings of a Colorado workingman under the regime of
the militia general, Sherman Bell, whose orders were, "To hell
with the Constitution." Says London :

Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear so glorious
and constitutional to the workingman who has experienced a bull pen
or been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. Nor are this
particular workingman's hurt feelings soothed by reading in the news-
papers that both the bull pen and the deportation were preeminently
just, legal, and constitutional. "To hell, then, with the Constitution,"
says he, and another revolutionist has been made — ^by the capitalist
class.

And next morning here comes the "New York Times," not
quite saying that Jack said "To hell with the Constitution," but
carefully implying it ; which dishonesty, of course, takes wings,
and from one end of the country to the other Americans read
that Jack London has said, "To hell with the Constitution."
Jack is on his way home, and cannot answer; here am I, as
vice-president of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, under
whose auspices the meeting had been held, writing to the
"Times" to call attention to the injustice it has done to a great
American novelist. The "Times" puts my letter under the
title :

The Press and Jack London 343

the call of the wild

Jack London Puts an "If" in the Condemned Constitution.

And here if the "New York Evening Sun," denouncing
Jack; here is the "Chicago Inter-Ocean," in an editorial:

If Jack London speaks only for himself, he is either a cheap
seeker after notoriety or a pestilential agitator. If the latter, he is
more dangerous than the agitators whose fulminations led to the
assassination of President McKinley, and assassination is as likely to
follow his diatribes.

Our laws prevent the importation of foreign Anarchists. Are the
laws and public sentiment not strong enough to suppress the exploiter
of sensationalism who preaches treason to the flag and war on the
Government?

And here is the "Rochester Post Express," with the head-
line: "A LITERARY ANARCHIST." Here is the "Mil-
waukee Sentinel" : "LONDON BELCHES MORE FIRE."
Here is the "Chicago Inter-Ocean": "ASSASSINATION
PET JOY OF MR. LONDON."

And here are various public libraries, rushing to defend
our imperiled institutions by barring the books of Jack London
from their shelves: Derby, Connecticut; Des Moines, Iowa;
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And here is Jack, writing to Gay-
lord Wilshire: "Thanks for the enclosures. You bet they
amuse me! I leave it to you if my situation isn't amusing!"
In a letter to me, Mrs. London explains this amusement:
"Down went his royalties !" And she adds :

j Several years ago Jack learned, from one newspaper man and
another, what he had often suspected — that the standing instructions
in practically every newspaper office on the Pacific Coast were to
give Jack London the worst of it whenever possible. Of course this
meant no matter what the occasion, whether slamming his work, or
•wilfully misrepresenting his personal actions. And they only ' sub-
sided, as I have said above, when they adjudged he had a bank ac-
count, and therefore must needs be less radical.

This trick played upon Jack London is a favorite one with
our newspapers — ^to take some quotation, and put it in the
mouth of the quoter. What a sordid man is William Shakes-
peare; he said: "Put money in thy purse!" What a vain-
glorious man is the apostle Matthew; he said: "All these
things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me I" What a violent man is James H. Maurer, president of
the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor ; he said : "Down wit!.
the Stars and Stripes!"

344 The Bbass Check

Mr. Maurer came to New York to tell the people about the
state constabulary, a public strike-breaking agency organized
by the big capitalists of his state. The big capitalists of New
York wanted the same thing, and the big newspapers of New
York were boosting for it, and of course ridiculing and slander-
ing all who opposed it. At the Washington Irving High
School, on April 19, 1916, Mr. Maurer addressed a public
meeting and read a passage from his book, "The American
Cossack." The incident he read was a funeral; a Spanish
war-veteran had died during the miners' strike in Westmore-
land County, and was being buried by the striking miners with
military honors. Members of the state constabulary came
riding up. They objected to these lousy strikers using the
American flag, and ordered that the flag be lowered. The
strikers refused, whereupon the Cossacks threatened to shoot
unless the flag was lowered and furled. Maurer quoted them :
"Down with the Stars and Stripes !" So next day the news-
papers reported Maurer as saying, "Down with the Stars and
Stripes !" The "New York Times" went farther yet, and re-
ported him as saying, "To hell with the Stars and Stripes!"
I quote Maurer's letter :

Mayor Mitchel of New York ordered the school-board to inves-
tigate these charges at once and they did so. At the hearing twelve
witnesses were heard. Eleven swore that I said nothing of the kind
and repeated what I did say. One, a "New York Sun" reporter by
the name of Lester S. Walbridge, contended that I had said, "Down
with the Stars and Stripes !" but admitted that there had been much
cheering at the time and that he did not catch all that I said. Three
others wrote and telegraphed their testimony, all saying that I said
nothing of the kind. Some of the witnesses were people favorable
to the State Police. The verdict of the School-board was to the
effect that I said nothing of the kind, but had simply told my audience
what the State Police had said; that it was the State Police who said,
"Down with the Stars and Stripes," and not Mr. Maurer. A clear
vindication.

The day the story first appeared in the New York papers, charging
mc with the flag slander, the story was used to stampede the New
York senators into voting for the State Police Bill then pending, and
it worked. Although I was vindicated, the story is still used; every
now and then someone editorializes about it.

In my efifort to verify this story, I write to a reporter who
was on the job at this time. He answers;

As a matter of fact all the reporters were out getting a drink
when Maurer spoke, and they took their version of what he said from
the Real Estate Association's provocateurs at the meeting.

The Press and Jack London 345

In connection with this Maurer episode, there is a curious
story which should be told. You remember "Collier's Weekly,"
a magazine "run on a personal basis," and the many young
writers who had been debauched by "Collier" prosperity. Ons
of these writers was Richard Harding Davis, and you would
have to hunt a long time to find a more perfect incarnation
of capitalist prosperity and success in literature. It happened
that Davis was at his country home when he read in the
"New York Times" that Maurer had said, "To hell with the
Stars and Stripes!" Davis flew into a rage, and drafted a
telegram to the mayor of New York, calling upon him to use
the power of the government to put down these preachers of
sedition. He went to the telephone to dictate the message, and
before he was half-way through, fell dead of an apoplectic
stroke !

Ten years ago I produced in California a one-act play
called "The Indignant Subscriber." The editor of a great news-
paper is found walking on the shore of an imaginary lake. A
stranger invites him for a row in a boat — ^the "boat" consisting
of two chairs and a board tied together, the "oars" being
brooms. The stranger rows the editor out into the middle of
the lake, and then announces himself as the Indignant Sub-
scriber. "For twenty-five years,'.' he says, "I have listened
helplessly, while you set forth your views on every subject
under the sun. Now for once I mean to teU you my views on
one subject — ^yourself !" So he speaks his mind, and at the
end upsets the boat and swims away, leaving the editor floun-
dering in the water.

Now I am the Indignant Subscriber, who has been taking
the "New York Times" for twenty-five years. I propose to
give the "Times" a taste of its own medicine — ^by writing some
headlines and letting the "Times" see just how it feels. Here
goes:

"NEW YORK TIMES" KILLS FAVORITE AUTHOR

Death of R. H. Davis Caused by Reporter Seeking High-ball

Lie Occasions Fatal Shock

Reads "Times" Incitement, Drops Dead in Home

Now, how's that?

CHAPTER LVI
THE PRESS AND LABOR

I have told many stories of newspaper lies about myself,
and perhaps you thought that was just one person who was
wronged, and it didn't make much difference; but when it
comes to lying about the labor movement, thousands and even
millions of pfeople are wronged, and that surely does make a
difference. When newspapers lie about a strike, they lie about
every one of the strikers, and every one of these strikers and
their wives and children and friends know it. When they see
deliberate and long-continued campaigns to render them odious
to the public, and to deprive them of their just rights, not
merely as workers, but as citizens, a blaze of impotent fury
is kindled in their hearts. And year by year our newspapers
go on storing up these volcanic fires of hate — ^against the day
when labor will no longer be impotent!

Imagine, if you can, the feelings of a workingman on strike
who picks up a copy of the "Wall Street Journal" and reads :

We have a flabby public opinion which would wring its hands in
anguish if we took the labor leader by the scruff of his neck, backed
him up against a wall, and filled him with lead. Countries which con-
sider themselves every bit as civiUzed as we do not hesitate about
such matters for a moment.

Whaiever it comes to a "show-down" between labor and
capital, the press is openly or secretly for capital — and this
no matter how "liberal" this press may pretend to be. Says
Professor Ross :

Duritig labor disputes the facts are usually distorted to the injury
of labor. In one case (Chicago), strikers held a meeting on a vacant
lot enclosed by a newly-erected billboard. _ Forthwith appeared, in a
yellow journal professing warm friendship for labor, a front-page
cut of the billboard and a lurid story of how the strikers had built
a "stockade" behind which they ititended to bid defiance to the blue-
coats. It is not surprising that when the_ van bringing these lying
sheets a;pi)eared in their quarter of the city, the libeled men over-
turned it.

During the struggle of carriage-drivers for a six-day week, cer-
tain great dailies lent themsdves to a concerted effort of the liverymea
to win public sympathy by making if appear that the strikers were

346

The Ppess and Labob Mt

interfering with funerals. One paper falsely stated that a strong force
of police was being held in reserve in case of "riots," and that police-
men would ride beside the non-union drivers of hearses. Another,
under the misleading headline, "Two_ Funerals Stopped by Striking
Cabmen," described harmless colloquies between hearse-drivers and
pickets. This was followed up by a solemn editorial, "May a Man Go
to His Long Rest in Peace?" — ^although, as a matter of fact, the strikers
had no intention of interfering with funerals

That was in Chicago, ten years ago. And now, as I write,
the employes of the packing-houses, my old friends of "The
Jungle," are on strike again, and the Chicago newspapers are
at their usual game of deliberate lying: "Violence is Ex-
pected," "Situation is. Critical," and so on. It happens that
an honest man, Alfred W. McCann, is on the scene. He
writes :

I say it isn't true. To the shame of the press, no fouiidation can
be discovered for the wild stories now filling their columns, spreading
public anxiety and inciting labor to outbursts of indignation against
what is called "the deliberate misrepresentation of the press."

The packers advertise heavily in Chicago newspapers ; and
so also do the Chicago department-stores. Says Prof. Ross:

In the same city (Chicago), during a strike of the elevator men
in the large stores, the business agent of the elevator-starters' union
was beaten to death, in an alley behind a certain emporium, by a
"strong-arm" man hired by that firm. The story, supported by affi-
davits, was given by a responsible lawyer to three newspaper men, each
of whom accepted it as true and promised to print it. The account
never appeared.

Try, for a moment, to put yourself in the position of a
girl-slave of one of these big department-stores. You resist
the flirtatious advances of the floor-walker, and continue to eat
your twenty-cent dinners; but after a few years you grow
desperate, and in the face of the heaviest pressure you organize
and declare a strike for better pay. How much chance do you
stand for fair play from the newspapers? Why, they won't
even print the names of the stores against Which you are strik-
ing! Says Max Sherover:

While addressing a street meeting, held under the auspices of the
Retail Clerks' Union, in front of Stern Brothers' _ department-store,
Miss Elizabeth Dutcher was arrested at the instigation of one of die
store-managers. Miss Dutcher is highly prominent in social and labor
circles, and the papers did not dare to be entirely silent about the
arrest. Every paper in New York, except one — and that one does not

348 The Beass Check

carry department-store advertising — spoke of a meeting at the doors
of a "large retail establishment." They also referred to an earlier in-
cident as a disturbance at the doors of a "Sixth Avenu*" Store," not
daring to mention the name, Gimbel's.

Or again, Prof. Ross :

, In New York the salesgirls in the big shops had to sign an ex-
ceedingly mean and oppressive contract, which, if generally known,
would have made the firms odious to the public. A prominent social
worker brought these contracts, and evidence as to the bad conditions
that had become established under them, to every newspaper in the
city. Not one would print a line on the subject

And not only do they exclude the news ; they keep watch
over the general ideas which go into their columns, to make
sure there is nothing to injure the sensibilities of department-
stores, or to favor the girl-slaves of department-stores. Would
you think I was absurd if I were to declare that there is a
whole set of philosophical ideas which the newspapers forbid
you to know about, because the department-stores ordain?
Yes, even so ! You must believe in free will, you must not
believe in economic determinism ! You must think that prosti-
tution is a sexual phenomenon; you must not learn that
prostitution is an economic phenomenon. Anybody who advo-
cates the heretical, anti-department-store doctrine that white-
slavery is caused by low wages will be suppressed, and if neces-
sary will be slandered as an immoral person. You remember
the "New York World," its solemn editorial about twenty-cent
dinners? Some years ago the "World" was under contract
to publish every week a short story by O. Henry. They re-
ceived the manuscript of what posterity has come to recognize
as O. Henry's masterpiece, "The Unfinished Story"; they re-
fused to publish this "Unfinished Story," because it was in-
jurious to department-stores !

Or consider what happened when the Illinois Vice Com-
mission made an investigation of the causes of prostitution,
and submitted one of the best reports on this subject ever
written. The report was highly sensational, also it was highly
important; it was news in ev-ery possible sense of the word.
But it attributed prostitution to low wages, and therefore only
one Chicago newspaper gave an adequate account of this
report !

You saw the "Boston Herald" and "Journal," and also
the "Boston Post," forbidding you to know that President

The Press and Laboe 349

Wilson was urging you not to spend money on luxuries. In
the same way, when there is a crisis of unemployment, the
department-stores and other advertisers command that false-
hoods shall be told you. If you know that business is bad,
you may be cautious and save your money; whereas the
department-stores want you to spend your money, and the
kept press wants its share of this money for advertisements.
Says Prof. Ross:

The alacrity with which many dailies serve as mouth-pieces of
the financial powers came out very clearly during the recent industrial
depression. The owner of one leading newspaper called his reporters
together and said in effect, "Boys, the first of you who turns in a
story of a lay-off or a shut-down, gets the sack." Early in the
depression the newspapers teemed with glowing accounts of the re-
sumption of steel-mills and the revival of business, all baseless. After
harvest-time they began to cheep "Prosperity," "Bumper Crops,"
"Farmers Buying Automobiles." In cities where banks and employers
oflrered clearing-house certificates instead of cash, the press usually
printed fairy tales of the enthusiasm with which these makeshifts were
taken by depositors and workingmen. The numbers and suilerings
of the unemployed were ruthlessly concealed from the reading public.
A mass meeting of the men out of work was represented as "an-
archistic" or "instigated by the Socialists for political effect." In
one daily appeared a dispatch under the heading "Five Thousand Jobs
Offered ; Only Ten Apply." It stated that the Commissioner of Public
Works of Detroit, misled by reports of dire distress, set afoot a
public work which called for five thousand men. Only ten men applied
for work, and all these expected to be bosses. Correspondence with
the official establishes the fact that the number of jobs offered was
five hundred, and that three thousand men applied for them.

That was twelve years ago, in the Middle West. Six years
ago we had another unemployment crisis, and I watched the
newspapers handling it in New York. You might have thought
they would not have been able to fool me; but they did! A
boy out of this unemployed army, Frank Tanenbaum by name,
led a number of starving men to the Catholic Church of St.
Alphonsus to request shelter on a winter's night. I read
several newspapers, in the hope of getting the truth from one
of them; on this occasion all the papers agreed that the un-
employed men and their leader abused and threatened the
priest, and were noisy and blasphemous in their behavior. !■
was heartsick about it. Oh, what a pity! If only those poor
devils had had the sense to go to the churches in a quiet and
respectful way, their position would have been impregnable.
Christian churches would not have dared to turn out starving
men on a winter's night!

350 The Brass Check

But Christian churches did! And the capitalist press
backed them up ! The leader, Frank Tanenbaum, was arrested,
and he called as witnesses the very newspaper men who had
written the stories of his "raid." These men had been willing
to lie in what they wrote — ^that was part of the newspaper
game; but they were unwilling to lie under oath — ^that was
not part of the game ! So they testified that these unemployed
men had been entirely peaceful in their conduct, that Tanen-
baum had addressed the priest with politeness and respect,
and that the crowd had left the church when told that they
must do so !

Some years ago there was a strike of the hotel-workers in
New York, an I. W. W. strike — and of course there is nothing
with which the newspapers deal more freely than the I. W. W.
They quoted Joe Ettor as having advised the strikers to put
poison in the soup which they served to hotel patrons; also
as having insulted the American flag. Ettor denied vigorously
having made any such statements, but of course his denial went
for nothing. Some of us who knew Ettor thought that the
public ought to get a little of the truth about conditions under
which these hotel-workers were forced to live — conditions
menacing not only to themselves, but to the public they served.
Therefore the Intercollegiate Socialist Society called a meeting
in Carnegie Hall to hear the I. W. W. leaders. A fiery little
New York politician who held the office of sheriff saw an op-
portunity to leap into the lime-light. He would attend that
meeting with a large force of deputies, and protect the Amer-
ican flag from insult! He brought some thirty deputies, to
whom the county paid three dollars each; and we provided
them with seats on the platform, and all the orators made
speeches to them, and the young ladies who passed the collec-
tion-plates took away a part of their three dollars. And next
morning the newspapers reported that the gallant sheriff had
protected the American flag and tamed the seditious fury of
the I. W. W.!

You remember, perhaps, my story of the Paterson silk-
strikers, and how the "New York Times" quoted me as telling
them that they "had the police at their mercy." Here is an-
other glimpse of this strike, through the eyes of Max Sherover :

At the I. W. W. pageant held about two years ago at Madison
Square Garden, New York, for the benefit of the Paterson, N. J,

The Pkess and Labor 351

silk-strikers, the writer was an eye-witness to the following scene:
A reporter, whose identity we were unable to learn, in the basement
of the Garden hurriedly printed the following words on an improvised
banner, "No God and No Master, I. W. W." One of the illiterate
strikers was asked to hold the banner aloft and pose while a news-
paper photographer was taking a flashlight photo.

This Paterson pageant was a result of the effort of a few
literary men and women in New York, who saw the shameless
lying of the press and the shameless violation of law by the
authorities in Paterson. A group of people, including Ernest
Poole, Hutchins Hapgood, Leroy Scott, John Reed, Thompson
Buchanan, Margaret Sanger, and myself worked for weeks,
giving all our time and energy and a great deal of money, and
brought about a thousand strikers to New York City to re-
hearse the story of their sufferings before an audience in
Madison Square Garden. This was so sensational that the
newspapers could not suppress it; therefore what they did
was to ridicule and betray it. They always make out that
labor-movements are rolling in wealth, and that "agitators"
are making fortunes. In this case they said that we were
planning to finance the strike by this pageant. Every news-
paper man knew this was absurd, for they knew the seating
capacity of the Garden and could figure the possible gross
receipts. The enterprise suffered a deficit of one or two thou-
sand dollars ; so of course the poor, starving strikers, who had
read in the newspapers that they were to be "financed," were
bitterly disappointed. The "New York Times" thus had a
chance for a story to the effect that the strikers were accusing,
us of having robbed them ; and this while we were engaged in
making up the deficit out of our own pockets !

Or take the Lawrence strike. I have told the story of how
conspirators of the great Woolen Trust planted dynamite in
the homes of strike-breakers as a "frame-up" to discredit the
strikers. The man who was convicted of this was a school
commissioner and a prominent Catholic, a close friend of the
mill-owners. When this dynamite was found, the Associated
Press sent the story fully. When the plot was exposed, it
sent almost nothing. These statements were made publicly
at a conference at the University of Wisconsin by A. M.
Simons, and never challenged by the Associated Press. And
at this same conference it was stated by George French that

35S The Beass Check

the department-stores served notice upon all the Boston news-
papers that if they featured this strike thejy would get no
more Sunday advertising!

Or take the present struggle of the railroad brotherhoods
for a living wage. The "Saturday Evening Post" published a
series of articles by Edward Hungerford, full of gross false-
hoods regarding the wages of railroad workers and managers
under the Federal administration. These, mind you, were flat
misstatements of facts officially recorded and available to any
one. The brotherhoods asked a certain United States railroad
administration official to prepare from official records a state-
ment concerning these misrepresentations. This was formally
submitted to the "Saturday Evening Post," and was abso-
lutely ignored.

Or take the case of Tom Mooney. The capitalist news-
papers of San Francisco tried Tom Mooney, with the help
of a million dollar corruption fund, raised by the Merchants
and Manufacturers Association of the city. They found him
guilty, but the prosecuting authorities didn't have enough evi-
dence to make good the verdict in court, so they manufactured
the evidence. Mt>oney was a Socialist and a well-known labor
organizer, so the case was taken up by the Socialists and
the unions of the country, and became the great labor issue
of the time — all without one word getting into the capitalist
newspapers of the East! There were two or three million
copy "protest editions" of the "Appeal to Reason" issued —
and still not a word about it in the capitalist newspapers out-
side of California! Finally the Anarchists in Petrograd took
up the matter; they attacked the American embassy, and the
news was cabled back to New York that the attack was on
account of a certain "Tom Muni.",' "'The newspapers of New
York didn't know anything about the case, and couldn't find
out about it in time ; they had to publish the name as it came
over the cables — ^thus laying bare their shame to the whole
world! Could any writer of farce-comedy have invented a
greater satire upon New York Journalism than the fact that
it had to get its San Francisco labor-news misspelled from
Petrograd ?

CHAPTER LVII
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND LABOR

Great strikes are determined by public opinion, and public
opinion is always against strikers who are violent. Therefore,
in great strikes, all the efforts of the employers are devoted
to making it appear that the strikers are violent. The greatest
single agency in America for making it appear that strikers
are violent is the Associated Press. How does this agency
perform its function?

In the first place, by the wholesale method of elimination.
There are some violent strikers, needless to say, and Capitalist
Journalism follows this simple and elemental rule — if strikers
are violent, they get on the wires, while if strikers are not
violent, they stay off the wires; by which simple device it is
brought about that nine-tenths of the telegraphic news you
read about strikes is news of violence, and so in your brain-
channels is irrevocably graven the idea-association:

Strikes — ^violence ! Violence — strikes !

What about the millions of patient strikers who obey the
law, who wait, day after day, month after month, starving,
seeing their wives fading, their little ones turning white and
thin — ^and still restrain themselves, obeying the laws of their
masters ? What about the strike-leaders who plead day in and
day out — I have heard them a hundred times — "No violence!
No violence !" — what about them ? Why, nothing ; just noth-
ing! The Associated Press will let a big strike continue for
months and never mention it — ^unless there is violence! For
example, the great coal-strike in West Virginia. It happens,
through a set of circumstances to be explained in the next
chapter, that I have before me the sworn complete file of all
the dispatches which the Associated Press sent out during the
sixteen months of this strike. The strike began April 1, 1913.
The first dispatch sent by the Associated Press was on April
6 ; a very brief dispatch, telling of threats of violence. The
second dispatch was on June 1 ; this also very brief, to the
effect that "serious rioting is imminent." The third dispatch
was on July 23 ; also brief, telling of rioting, and of state troops

23 353

354 The Brass Check

sent in. Thus it appears that during one hundred and thirteen
days of a great strike the Associated Press considered it neces-
sary to send only two brief items — and these containing not
one line about the causes of the strike, not one line about the
demands of the miners, not one line about the economic sig-
nificance of a ferociously bitter labor struggle ! I have before
me the affidavit of Thomas Cairns, president of the United
Mine Workers' West Virginia district, stating that during these
sixteen months, which brought West Virginia to a state of civil
war, not once did the correspondent of the Associated Press
come to him for information about the strike !

And now, in 1919, there is more trouble in this district,
and I pick up my morning paper and read that three thou-
sand miners of Cabin Creek have taken up arms and are
marching to battle against machine-guns. The strike has been
going on for weeks, says the report; but this is the first hint
I have heard of it — I who read four Associated Press news-
papers, the "Los Angeles Times" and "Examiner," and the
"New York Times" and "World"!

The first point to be got clear is that in cases of big strikes
the Associated Press is getting its news through its local news-
paper member. I have shown that in Los Angeles it is con-
tent to co-operate with the unspeakable "Times-." In San
Diego it works with the "Union," personal organ of John D.
Spreckles, the "sugar-king"; and a few years ago, when a
murderous mob of bankers, lawyers and merchants was en-
gaged in shooting, clubbing, tarring and feathering, throwing
into prison, and there torturing, drugging, and starving the
radicals of that city, the "San Diego Union" paid editorial
tribute to the fact that the Associated Press was handling this
situation to the satisfaction of the murderous mob of bankers,
lawyers and merchants. The "San Diego Union," which had
done most of the inciting of this mob, stated editorially :

Great credit is due the Associated Press for the manner in which
it has handled the news end of this matter.

In city after city, you will find the Associated Press thus
tied up with the worst reactionary influences. In Louisville,
for example, it co-operates with the "Courier-Journal," whose
serio-coinic story I have told in detail. In St. Paul, Minnesota,
we saw the Associated Press misquoting Senator La Follette
in a manner calculated to ruin him. It sought at first to put

The Associated Pbess and Laboe 355

the blame upon its "member paper," the "St. Paul Pioneer
Press." You recall the charges made against this paper by
Walter W. Liggett, quoted on page 268. Note that the Asso-
ciated Press did not cease taking its news through a paper
which had failed to resent such grave charges as these.

I cannot find that the "A. P." ever did raise this issue
with one of its member-papers. An interesting light is thrown
on this very important subject by a controversy between the
"Sacramento Bee" and the "San Francisco Star." The "Bee"
printed a long defense of the Associated Press, and the "Star"
discussed it as follows :

Another damaging admission is that the Associated Press doesn't
care a picayune what manner of pirates buy a newspaper that has an
Associated Press franchise. It mentions the case of the "San Francisco
Globe," which bought the special privilege news service of the "Post"
when it bought the name of that paper. The franchise went with the
name to a band of industrial pirates who wanted a special privilege
news service to supplement their special privilege traction service in
this city.

The "San Francisco Star" is a weekly, and so its editor
does not need to be afraid of the Associated Press. I have
a letter written by this editor, James H. Barry, to Prof. Ross
of the University of Wisconsin:

You wish to know my "confidential opinion as to the honesty of
the Associated Press." My opinion, not confidential, is that it is the
damndest, meanest monopoly on the face of the earth — the wet-nurse
for all other monopolies. It lies by day, it lies by night, and it lies
for the very lust of lying. Its news-gatherers, I sincerely believe, only
obey orders.

In great labor centers, from which strike-news comes,
you find this situation: that even if the Associated Press
wished to deal with a fair newspaper, there is no fair news-
paper to deal with. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, in Paterson,
New Jersey, in Trinidad, Colorado, in Bisbee, Arizona, the
newspapers are owned by the local industrial magnates and
their financial and political henchmen. In Montana the
Anaconda Mining Company, a Rockefeller concern, owns or
controls pra.ctically every newspaper in the state ; so of course
the Associated Press sends no fair labor news from Montana.
I asked Ex-Governor Hunt of Arizona how the Associated
Press had treated him while he was giving the miners a

356 The Brass Check

square deal during the big copper strike. He answered : "They
were so unfair that I quit dealing with them at all." I said :
"What paper in your state capital do they work with?" He
answered : "There are only two — one owned by a millionaire
land-speculator, the other owned by the 'Ray' !" (The "Ray"
is a copper company, one of the most powerful and most
corrupt.) Said Ex-Governor Hunt: "I proposed a law in
Arizona requiring that papers should carry the line: 'This
paper owned by the "Ray," or the "Copper Queen," or what-
ever the case might be.' " No wonder this ex-governor is
an "ex"!

He comes to see me, and brings a clipping from the "Mes-
senger," an independent weekly of his state capital. It ap-
pears that the wealthy bandits of the copper companies, who
two years ago seized over a thousand miners and deported
them from their homes, are now being tried for their crime.
Says the "Messenger":

Associated Press reports from Bisbee and Douglas relative to
the preliminary trial of alleged kidnappers are enough to condemn that
service forever. It was bad enough to withhold service on July 12,
1917, the day of deportation, but the present stuff —

And then the "Messenger" goes on to explain in detail what
is happening; the reporters of the local, copper-owned dailies
of Bisbee and Douglas are acting as Associated Press cor-
respondents, and are sending out "doctored stuff" to the
country. Three times during one week of the trial at Douglas
the "Bisbee Review" has had to apologize and correct state-
ments attributed to a woman witness; these errors, "tele-
graphed broadcast" by the Associated Press, have been cor-
rected "only by local mention"!

And here is the Central Trades Council of Tucson adopt-
ing a resolution, denouncing the "brazen one-sidedness" of
the Associated Press reports of the trial :

Resolved, That to date we have not seen a single article that did
not feature some silly remark made by some foreigner or illiterate
witness for the state, and the vital news parts omitted.

In the case of the Colorado coal-strike, I have shown you
what the Associated Press did in New York and in Denver.
What was it doing meantime in the actual strike-field? In
Walsenburg the publisher was "Jeff" Farr, whiskey-magnate,
coal company sheriff and organizer of assassination, popularly
kmown as the "King of Huerfano County." In Trinidad there

The Associated Pbess and Labor 357

were two dailies owned by the chief attorney of the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company, whose son took command of one of
the gunmen armies, and seized a United States mail-train to
transport them. The "A. P." day man was the editor of the
evening paper; the "A. P." night man was the telegraph-
editor of the morning paper! Max Eastman tells me of in-
terviewing one of them — introducing himself as a Chautauqua
lecturer, desirous of getting the truth about the strike. The
editor was in a mood of frankness, and said:

There's no use coming to me for the truth. A man in my posi-
tion naturally gets only one side, the operators' side.

And, of course, he sent out that side. During the latter
part of the strike the "Rocky Mountain News" of Denver sent
its own correspondent to the field, and one of the editors told
me of a conversation with the Associated Press representa-
tive in Denver. Said the latter, "Why do you keep a man
down there ?" Said the editor, "Because you people refuse to
send me the news." And it was exactly the same during a
strike in another part of the state, the "Northern field," where
several score labor leaders were thrown into jail, but when it
came to trial were nearly all acquitted. George Creel writes :
"The Associated Press furnished the newspapers with ac-
counts of these cases, but lost interest when the verdicts were
returned."

As I write, there is a great steel strike, and from the
"Panhandle" of West Virginia comes the following special
dispatch to the "New York Call" :

The capitalist press representatives have so falsely reported the
existing strike conditions that steel strike leaders here now refuse to
make any statements at all to them. Several times, after having
promised to write, without alterations, the reports which the strike
leaders had given, the Associated Press representatives deliberately re-
versed the statements.

So much for steel. And now hear what Charles Edward
Russell has to say (Pearson's for April, 1914) concerning the
conduct of the Associated Press in the Calumet copper-strike.
In a letter to me he writes :

I may say that the Associated Press made a loud squeal on the
story and blacklisted me for some years afterward, so you will see
diat the subject is one on which they are sensitive.

358 The Beass Check

I quote from the article, "The Associated Press and Calu-
met":

Some of the richest copper deposits in the world are in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan, most of them purporting to be owned or con-
trolled by a great corporation called the Calumet and Hecla. This
is a mining company that is also the holding concern for_ seventeen
other mining companies, owns a railroad or two, some smelting works,
some other profit-making devices and an organized system of politics
the equal of any.

It is one of the richest and most profitable enterprises in the
world. Except for a few railroads like those of Mr. Hill, the Calumet
and Hecla has made more money on a smaller investment than any
other corporation that ever existed. In the sixteen years ending with
1912 the smallest annual dividend has been 80 per cent, and in other
years it has been as much as 400 per cent.

As these dividends were declared upon a capital stock less than
half of which was ever paid for, a nominal dividend of 400 per cent
was an actual dividend of 800 per cent.

On every dollar ever invested in this company more than one
hundred dollars have been paid in dividends, while millions of dollars
of other profits have been diverted to the purchase of additional profit-
making ventures. With a par value of $25.00 on which only $12.00 was
paid in, the shares have now a value of $540.00 each.

This gigantic cornucopia is owned by the Shaws, Agassizs
and Higginsons, leading families of Boston ; and besides their
dividends, they pay themselves enormous salaries as officers
and directors of Calumet and Hecla, and of the seventeen sub-
sidiary companies. Says Russell :

The Calumet and Hecla barony comprises one hundred and seven-
teen miles. There is every reason to believe that it occupies and has
occupied this land without rightful title, and all the vast wealth it
has taken therefrom really belongs to the people of the United States.

There is also good reason to believe that it has consistently
violated its charter, and is now engaged in doing so every day and
every hour of every day: a fact that will not in the least astonish
you when you come to learn of some of its other activities, but that
adds a rarely piquant taste to the pioOs exclamations of its attorneys
on the subject of law-breaking.

And now, what of the men who worked for these copper
barons? They were ill-paid and ill-treated, badly housed,
worked for long hours at peril of life and limb; they lived in
a community absolutely dominated by their masters ; there was
no other industry or source of wealth, and the politicians and
the courts, the newspapers and the churches — everything was
owned by "Copper." It is the old, sickening story of the over-

The Associated Peess and Laboe

359

throw of American institutions, the subjection of political
democracy to industrial autocracy.

The copper miners of the *'Upper Peninsula" went on
strike. They stayed on strike for many months, and during
that time they were slugged and beaten up by imported gun-
men, their offices raided, their leaders shot or jailed. During
this entire affair the Associated Press sent out to the country
a string of subtle and knavish falsehoods, of which Charles
Edward Russell gives seven pages, printing them in parallel
columns, first the falsehood, and then the result of careful
investigations, backed by numerous affidavits. (I might add
that the Congressional investigation vindicated these affidavits
in every detail.)

The parallel columns which Russell gives would fill about
twenty pages of this book. I give four samples, and the reader
may take my word that these samples are typical of the rest :

THE FACTS
Her name was Margaret Faze-
kes. She was not the daughter of
a striker, and had no connection
with the strike. There was no
clash with any picket. A Labor
Day procession was being held at
Kearsarge. It had nothing to do
with the strike. A band of armed^
guards without excuse or occasion
attacked the procession and broke
it up, firing about 100 shots from
their revolvers. This girl was not
in the procession. She was walk-
ing along the sidewalk, and a
bullet from a gunman's revolver
pierced her skull.

THE AFFIDAVITS
For instance, Victor Ozonick
swears that on July 31st he was
walking quietly along the public
road when he was arrested, taken
to Houghton and thrust into jail.
After a time he was taken into the
sheriflf's office and searched. A
deputy sheriff struck him in the
face with his clenched fist and
then kicked him. He was then
asked if he was a member of the
miners' union. When he said

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
(From Washington Post.)

Calumet, Mich., Sept. 1.— The
copper strike situation took a
serious aspect today as a result
of the fatal shooting of Margaret
Faxakas, aged 15, daughter of a
striker, at the North Kearsarge
mine, when a picket of strikers
and women clashed with deputy
sherifis guarding a mine.

THE ASSOaATED PRESS
Calumet, Mich., October 22, 1913.
To the Associated Press,
Chicago, 111.

As a measure of precaution
against possible disorder, the
troops have kept on the move
bodies of strikers who collect
while men are going to work in
the morning, but this is not con-
strued as interference with any
of the rights of the strikers.

360

The Brass Check

"yes" he was dragged back to a
cell and locked up for twenty-
four hours. After that he was re-
leased. No warrant was issued
for his arrest, no charge was made
against him, no proceedings of
any kind were had.

There are sheafs of such affidavits relating the manner in which
the armed guards proceeded to obey the orders to "start something."
The results of their efforts to obey their orders was a reign of terror
throughout the strike zone. Men, women and children were shot at,
beaten, ridden down by armed guards, or pursued along the highways.
At the road intersections shacks were erected, from the windows of
which the guards could command every house in a village, and the in-
mates could not stir out of their dwellings except under the watchful
eyes of the gunmen and the muzzl&s of rifles.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
(From Chicago Record-Herald.)
Calumet, Mich., Dec. 11. — Guer-
rilla warfare, which raged in the
South Range district of the cop-
per miners' strike zone, was ended
today when a force of deputy
sheriffs invaded several towns
there and made 39 arrests. The
only person injured was Timothy
DriscoU, a deputy sheriff, who was
shot and seriously wounded when
he and other officers attemptedto
force an entrance into a union
hall.

The trouble this morning cen-
tered around the hall of the West-
ern Federation of Miners in the
town of South Range. Here Dris-
coU was shot and several of the
arrests made. Henry Oski, a
striker, was specifically charged
with wounding the officer, and he
is said to have implicated by his
confession two other members of
the union.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

(From the Washington Post.)
Calumet, Michigan, Dec. 2ti. —
Charles H. Moyer, president of
the Western Federation of Miners,
was put on a train and sent out
of the copper strike district to-
night. The deportation was the

THE AFFIDAVITS

A mob composed chiefly of the
gentlemen of the Citizens' Alliance
gathered in Houghton and went
by special train to South Range.
There the mob attacked the hall
of the South Range branch of the
Western Federation of Miners,
broke down the door, smashed all
the furniture, seized all the books,
papers and records, and destroyed
several thousand relief coupons
that had been prepared for the
miners' families. Henry Koski,
the secretary of the branch, lived
over the hall. When the work of
destruction had been completed
the mob rushed upstairs and began
with rifles to beat down the door
to Koski's rooms. He warned the
rioters that if they did not desist
he would fire. They continued to
batter the door, whereupon he
fired two shots, one of which
passed through the belly of one
of the rioters.

THE FACTS

A mob broke into the room in
Scott's Hotel, Hancock, occupied
by Mr. Moyer and Charles "Tan-
n_er, general auditor of the West-
ern Federation of Miners, seized
them both, beat and kicked them,
shot Moyer in the back and

The Associated Pbess and Labor

861

dragged them, both wounded,
from the hotel into the street.

The two prisoners were held so
that they could not defend nor
protect themselves, and in this
position were dragged through the
streets and across the bridge to
Houghton, being incessantly kicked
and beaten. Mr. Moyer was bleed-
ing and weak from a revolver
shot, and Mr. Tanner was bleed-
ing from a wound just below hi*
right eye.

In this condition they were
placed upon a train and under
armed guard taken out of the
state, being threatened with lynch-
ing if they should return.

Nobody hat been indicted nor
arrested for these assitults, al-
though the persons that committed
them are perfectly well known in
Hancock.

But Mr. Moyer has been In-
dicted for conspiracy.

direct result of a refusal of fam-
ilies stricken by the Christmas Eve
disaster here to accept relief from
a committee, the majority of^
■whose members belonged to the
Citizens' Alliance, an organization
combatting the five months' strike
of the federation.

At the local federation head-
quarters Moyer's departure was
called "a kidnapping by the Citi-
zens' Alliance." The action was
said to have caused no great sur-
prise, as it was said that threats
of such a possibility had been re-
ceived two weeks ago.

The relief committee, which had
collected $25,000, found itself un-
able to give away one cent when
it started today to deliver the
fund.

Every bereaved household that
was approached told the men and
women in charge of the distribu-
tion that they had been promised
adequate aid by the Western Fed-
eration of MinerSj and nowhere
was there any assistance wanted.

It might be worth while to summarize Russell's narratiye
of the outcome of this last matter. The leader of the mob
was an eminent Bostonian, James MacNaughton, vice-president
and general manager of "Caluniet and Hecla." When he was
accused, the Associated Press took the trouble to send out a
dispatch explaining that he could not possibly have been the
man, because of an elaborate and complicated alibi — ^which
alibi was later proven to prove nothing. Mr. MacNaughton
was never prosecuted in this matter; nor was the Associated
Press prosecuted — except by Charles Edward Russell. We
may believe the statement in Russell's letter, that "the Asso-
ciated Press made a loud squeal on the story !" I would afk :
Why did they not prosecute Russell? Why is it that the
general manager of the Associated Press makes nothing but
a "loud squeal"? Why does he content himself with easy
victories before church forums and chambers of commerce
banquets ? Why does he not come into court and vindicate his
honor in an open contest before a jury?

CHAPTER LVIII
"POISONED AT THE SOURCE"

I have been privileged to examine a mass of material,
some three or four million printed and typewritten words, the
evidence collected for the defense of Max Eastman and Art
Young, when they were indicted for criminal libel in Novem-
ber, 1913, at the instance of the Associated Press. These
three or four million printed and typewritten words enable us
to enter the offices of the Associated Press, and to watch its
work hour by hour. They enable us to study the process
whereby the public opinion of America is "poisoned at the
source."

Three hundred miles from our national capital, in the
lonely mountains of West Virginia, exists an empire of coal,
governed in all respects as Russia was governed in the days
of the Tsardom. I take up two printed volumes of testimony
given before the investigating committee of the United States
Senate, a total of 2,114 closely printed pages; I turn these
pages at random, and pick out a few heads that will give you
glimpses of how things are managed by the coal barons of
West Virginia: "Check weighmen guaranteed by law, but
not allowed to the miners." "Men paid in scrip which they
could not cash." "Men discharged and put out of their houses,
as fast as they talked unionism." "Mail burned by store
manager." "Law of West Virginia relieves coal owners from
liability for injuries in the mine, no matter how they occur."
"Independent store-keeper refused his goods at the express
office which was on company grounds." "Men not allowed to
approach postoffice on company property." "Provost Marshal
imprisoned nine men without trial." "No mine guard has
ever been tried for participating in any battle." "Machine-
guns and guards turned on peaceful crowd coming from meet-
mg.

In "King Coal" I have portrayed the conditions in Colorado.
In West Virginia conditions were in all respects the same,
and for the same reason. When the sixteen months' strike in
West Virginia had been smashed, the same mine guards, with

362

"Poisoned at the Source" 363

the same rifles and machine-guns, were shipped to Colorado,
and under the direction of the same Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency they smashed the fourteen months' strike in Colorado.
And both in West Virginia and Colorado the same Associated
Press was made use of to send to the country the same mis-
representations and suppressions of truth.

In the "Independent" for May 15, 1913, after the West
Virginia strike had lasted more than a year, there appeared
an article by Mrs. Fremont Older, describing the farcical
military trial of some union officials at Paint Creek Junction.
Mrs. Older, the only impartial person who was able to get
into" this court-room, made the statement: "The Provost
Marshal was not only the ruling officer of Paint Creek Junc-
tion ; he was the Associated Press correspondent. He had the
divine gift for creating darkness." In the next issue of the
"Independent" appeared a letter from the assistant general
manager of the Associated Press, declaring: "The Provost
Marshal was not the Associated Press correspondent, and
never had been."

Nevertheless, this rumor would not down, and in the
"Masses" for July, 1913, appeared a cartoon: "Poisoned at
the Source," representing the president of the Associated
Press engaged in pouring the contents of a bottle labeled
"Lies" into a reservoir labeled "Public Opinion." Accom-
panying the cartoon was an editorial, one sentence of which
read: "The representative of the Associated Press was an
officer in that military tribunal that hounded the Paint Creek
miners into the penitentiary in violation of their constitutional
liberties." The answer of the Associated Press to this was
the indictment for criminal libel of Max Eastman and Art
Young. The "Masses," presumably by advice of counsel, did
not discuss the case, and continued to maintain silence, even
after the case was dropped. The facts are here made public
for the first time — ^possibly because in preparing this book I
have not taken the trouble to consult counsel. Here are cer-
tain facts which the public should have ; and if I have to hand
them to the public through the bars of a jail, it will not be
the ffrst time that has happened in history.

Was the Provost Marshal of the West Virginia State
Militia a correspondent of the Associated Press? He was, or
he was not — according to whether you care about truth or
technicality. ,.

364 The Beass Check

You are, doubtless, a loyal American. You believe in the
constitution and laws of your country, and you do not under-
stand just what it meant to be Provost Marshal of the West
Virginia State Militia during the coal strike of 1912-13. If
you think that it meant to be a public official, performing a
public service in the interest of the public, you are naive. To
have had anything to do with the West Virginia State Militia
during that strike meant to be a creature of the mine operators,
in the pay of the mine operators, owned body and soul by the
mine operators. It meant that you were setting aside, not
merely the laws of the state of West Virginia, but the Con-
stitution of the United States. It meant that you were beating
and flogging and shooting strikers, kicking their wives and
children out of their homes to freeze in the mountain snows,
turning machine-guns upon their tent-colonies, throwing their
leaders into jail without trial, and torturing them there for
months on end. It meant this, whether you were the lowest
Baldwin-Felts mine-guard taken out of a city slum and put
into the militia uniform; or whether you were Capt. Lester,
an official of militia, who testified under oath before the
Senate committee that it was not his business to know if
miners had a legal right to organize or not — ^he was sent there
to prevent their organizing, and he did what he was sent
there to do.

And now, just what was the relationship of the Associated
Press to this prostituted State Militia? Was the Provost
Marshal of Militia the Associated Press correspondent in this
field? He was, or he was not — according as you care about
truth or technicality.

The Associated Press correspondent at Charleston, who
covered all the strike, and who had been officially appointed
and acknowledged, was a man named Cal Young, and he had
his office in the office, or connected with the office, of the Adjt.
General of Militia. This Cal Young had an intimate friend
by the name of John C. Bond, who was Provost Marshal of
Militia, and also was correspondent for several newspapers.
Cal Young did not trouble himself to travel about in the
strike field, which was widely scattered, occupying a number
of mountain valleys. Bond, however, was compelled by his
militia duties to travel to the scene of all troubles; therefore
Bond and Young had an arrangement whereby Bond tele-

"Poisoned at the Source" 365

phoned news from wherever he was, and Young sent this
news, not only over the Associated Press wire, but to the
papers which Bond represented.

The above was stated from first-hand positive knowledge
by Jesse Sullivan at the State House to an attorney for
whom I can vouch. Also it was sworn to by W. Bruce
Reid, reporter for the "Charleston Gazette" and the "Kanawha
Citizen." Reid swore that he knew Young intimately; that
Young maintained his offices in the Adjt. General's office with-
out charge ; that Young from this office transmitted orders for
the movements of the State Militia, and for these services
was paid out of the Governor's contingent fund ; that he acted
as official reporter for the state administration ; that anyone
who called at the State House for news was referred by the
Governor and the Adjt. General to Young; that Young re-
ceived news of military doings and of strike incidents from
J. C. Bond, who was a printing clerk in the Secretary of
State's office, and also captain and paymaster of militia ; that
Bond was made Provost Marshal, with absolute authority
over the strike territory, and tried a number of citizens, ninety-
eight in all, by military tribunal; that Bond had a regular ar-
rangement with Young whereby he furnished Young with
news reports ; and that Young had an understanding with the
military department whereby all news was given out through
him.

Reid further testified that he was instructed by the militia
authorities to distort news, and also to write editorials for his
paper, supporting the military policy; that when he refused
to do this, the editors of his paper were called up and prac-
tically instructed to write such editorials, and that they did
this ; that furthermore Reid was threatened .if he failed to
distort news as directed ; that all these things were well known
to Young, correspondent of the Associated Press; that Young
was "extremely bitter against the miners' cause"; that he con-
tinually so expressed himself before Reid; that a correspon-
dent of the "Baltimore Sun," who came to Charleston, was so
impressed with Young's prejudice that he went into the field
for himself, and wrote an entirely different account of the
events. It was known that Young, while Associated Press
representative, was seeking employment from the state ad-
ministration, and he had since obtained such employment.

So much for outside evidence. And now let us hear from

36« The Brass Check

Young himself. The attorney sent by the "Masses" called
upon Cal Young, who told him that after the strike he had
been discharged from the Associated Press by W. H. French,
manager of the Pittsburgh division, and tiiat French had
stated to him that the reason was that Fremont Older and
others had made complaint concerning the news that the Asso-
ciated Press had furnished from West Virginia. Young ad-
mitted practically everything as stated by Reid: his desk in
the Adjt. General's office, his relations with the administra-
tion, and his arrangement with Bond, whereby Bond furnished
him regularly and continually with news from the field. I
note three sentences from the investigator's report :

Young also stated that before martial law he got most of his in-
formation from the Sheriil or Deputy SheriflF, or from telegraph
operators who were in the employ of the railroad company or the
mine owners. He stated that although he went up the Creek a few
times, he obtained most of the information through ofificial reports.
Young stated that through the Senatorial _ investigation he had to
cover other territory and that during that time Bond covered the in-
vestigation for the A. P.

Such are the facts. I have taken the trouble to give them
at length, so that you may judge for yourself. And in the
light of these facts, what do you think of the letter pub-
lished in the "Independent" over the signature of Frederick
Roy Martin, assistant General Manager of the Associated
Press ? Do you think that Mr. Martin was entirely ingenuous
when he stated: "The Provost Marshal was not the Asso-
ciated Press correspondent, and never had been"?

W. H. French, manager of the Pittsburgh division of the
Associated Press, was subpoened by the "Masses" editors, and
gave his deposition in advance of the expected trial. It was
a trial all in itself, and the stenographic record of it lies
before me. For the light it throws on Mr. French's sincerity,
let it be ngted that he swore he could remember nothing
whatever of his conversation with Cal Young when he dis-
charged Young from the employ of the Associated Press. The
discharge had taken place less than a year previously, and
Mr. French had taken a special trip from Pittsburgh to
Charleston, West Virginia, to attend to, the matter. But he
could not remember wliy he had discharged Young, nor what
he had said to Young. He could not remember having men-

"Poisoned at the Source" 3<57

tioned Fremont Older's complaints. He vaguely thought that
he had mentioned Bond, but he couldn't be sure in what con-
nection he had mentioned Bond !

Mr. French explained in detail the methods by which the
Associated Press handled its news^ and the principles upon
which he and his subordinates "edited" it. He produced a
bulky mass of typewritten sheets, contain;ng all the dispatches
dealing with the West Virginia strike sent out by the Asso-
ciated Press during sixteen months. Mr. French swore that
this record was complete; and you will readily understand
that in studying the reports it is of the utmost importance
whether Mr. French was telling the truth. If the Associated
Press sends out hundreds of dispatches about a strike, and if,
before such dispatches are offered in evidence, they are care-
fully gone over and those which are flagrantly untrue and
damaging to the reputation of the Associated Press are ex-
tracted and destroyed — ^then obviously the Associated Press
has poisoned the evidence of the trial at the source.

Can I say that the officials of the Associated Press did thus
poison the evidence by which they endeavored to send Max
Eastman and Art Young to the penitentiary? No, I cannot
say that. All I can say is, that Mr. French submitted this
record under oath, as the original record, and a correct and
complete record, and testified under oath that there was no
possibility of its being incorrect or incomplete. Also I can
say that an investigation made in the bound files of two Asso-
ciated Press newspapers revealed the fact that these papers
had published dispatches, marked as sent by the Associated
Press, which did not appear in the correct and complete record
offered under oath by the Associated Press. Such a dispatch
may be found in the "Los Angeles Times," September 9, 1912,
marked "(by A. P. Night Wire to the Times)." Another
such dispatch may be found in the "Nashville American,"
September 23, 1913, marked "(By Associated Press)."

Let us take the five hundred and thirty-seven exhibits that
the Associated Press did submit. By means of them we are
enabled to enter the Associated Press' Pittsburgh office and
watch step by step the process of poisoning the news at the
source. Mr. French, it appears, was not satisfied with the
bitterly prejudiced reports which his correspondent, Young,
and Young's partner. Bond, sent in to him. He found it
necessary to go over their dispatches, and to put in still more

368 The Beass Check

poison. The dispatches, as submitted in evidence, contained
numerous pencil-marks, iexcisions and revisions ; and all these
were initialed, so that it was possible to tell whether Mr.
French or one of his assistants had done the work.

Mr. French, under cross examination, explained exactly
upon what principles this "editing" had been done. Thus
there had been cut out a sentence: "That mine-guards have
resorted to unlawful practice is generally conceded." Mr.
French explained that this sentence was editorial opinion ; the
dispatch did not say who conceded it. Mr. French declared
that he used this same system of editing all through the
dispatches. But in the same dispatch his attention was
called to the sentence : "Contrary to expectations, the miners
did not go to the meeting armed with rifles." This clearly
prejudiced sentence stayed in the dispatch — in spite of the
fact that the dispatch did not reveal whose expectations
were referred to ! And Mr. French testified that such cutting
out of a sentence favorable to the miners and leaving in of a
sentence injurious to the miners did not in his judgment render
the dispatch unfair. Mr. French repeated the words twice:
"I do not say unfair. I do not say unfair." So we are pro-
vided with a precise measure of the sense of fairness of an
Associated Press manager in charge of strike-news!

In one case the story of an ambush by miners came to the
Pittsburgh office, with the qualification: "According to the
story which reached here this afternoon." These words were
cut out — the effect of the alteration being to make a rumor
into a statement of fact. Mr. French could give no justifica-
tion for this proceeding. From another dispatch the sentence
had been cut : "The workers were ready to stick to the last."
That seemed to Mr. French a superfluous sentence ! Again he
had altered a dispatch which interviewed the President of the
United Mine Workers of America, "^e declared that the
miners of West Virginia were groaning under .oppressive
methods." Mr. French's office had altered it to read that the
miners had been groaning; and he could see no difference in
this change of tense!

I have taken the trouble myself to study the dispatches;
and how I wish that I might have Mr. French upon the wit-
ness-stand ! I would like to go through the five hundred and
thirty-seven dispatches and point out how utterly false is his
claim that hearsays and opinions were not admitted. There

"Poisoned at the Soukce" 369

are literally hundreds of hearsays and opinions ! For example,
the miners are threatening trouble, and "it is thought that on
account of this situation the martial law zone may have to be
extended." Again: "In some quarters the opinion was ex-
pressed that the miners had retired into the mountains."
Again: "All the prisoners, it was reported, have been re-
moved from box-cars and were being made as comfortable
as possible." Again : "This afternoon there was considerable
shooting at Holly Grove. It is said that men employed in the
mines were accosted by strikers." ^gain: "Armed miners
have taken possession of the strike territory, according to re-
ports." Such hearsays and opinions as this you find in every
other dispatch. Certain testimony is introduced before a
commission of the Governor of the State, and the Pittsburgh
office of the Associated Press is so in love with hearsays and
opinions that it takes some of the evidence introduced and
deliberately turns it into hearsay and opinion! I quote one
paragraph, first as it was sent in by the correspondent in the
field, and second as it was altered in the Pittsburgh office :

The evidence introduced all tends to show that the prices at the
company stores have been much higher than at independent stores,
and that there had been no trouble until the mine-guards were brought
into the district.

According to the miners the prices at the company stores have
been much higher than at independent stores. They, say there would
have been no trouble if the mine-guards had not been brought into
the district.

On November 20, 1913, the Charleston correspondent sent
a long dispatch about the fighting, and whole paragraphs of
this dispatch were cut out in the Pittsburgh office. I note that
in these paragraphs were many hearsays and opinions; but I
note that Mr. French's assistants were not content to cut out
the hearsays and opinions — ^they also cut out the news. Here,
for example, is one paragraph that never saw the hght :

During the first period of military control the sympathy, it is
claimed of a majority of the West Virginians, was with the miners.
Since that time many of the union miners have left this section,
tajcing their families into other coal fields. Then, it is alleged, the
contention was the removal of the mine-guard system maintained by
the coal operators, which had become obnoxious to the miners.

Or these two sentences, cut from the same dispatch':

34

370 The Brass Check

Many strike-breakers imported into the trouble zone have deserted.
Today hundreds of these men reached this city from the mining dis-
trict and walked the streets.

It is especially interesting to note that the date of the
dispatch from which the above two paragraphs were cut cor-
responds exactly with a date when Mr. French, according
to his own testimony, sent a special correspondent to Charles-
ton to report the news more fully. He sent a special man,
and when this special man sent news favorable to the miners,
Mr. French or his assistants sliced out whole chunks from his
dispatches — ^practically everything giving the miners' side!

On September 35, 1913, the Associated Press correspondent
in Charleston was moved by some unaccountable impulse to
tell the world the precise mechanism of the blacklist which the
companies maintained — while insisting, of course, that they
had never heard of a blacklist. Says the dispatch:

This it was shown was accomplished through a personal descrip-
tion of a miner on the back of house leases. If the miner was dis-
missed as undesirable other operators were given a copy of the de-
scription.

But was this dangerous information allowed to go out
to the world ? It was not !

Or again, take the dispatch of February 10, 1913, which
tells how, whenever the militiamen came after the strikers, the
strikers would dodge trouble ; they would "defeat the purpose
of the authorities by quietly retiring into the mountains." Mr.
French's office makes such a slight change; it merely cuts out
one word — ^the word "quietly" — ^thus turning a joke into a
military operation! Or take the night dispatch of April 23,
1913, which tells how the Governor of West Virginia made
a speech to the miners' delegates. Among other things the
Governor said : "I assure you that the laboring world has no
better friend in public office than myself." The Pittsburgh
office of the Associated Press cut out this incendiary sentence
from the Governor's speech!

A still more illuminating method of approaching the prob-
lem is to compare the Associated Press dispatches as they
actually reached the public with the facts as developed by
sworn testimony of hundreds of witnesses before the Senate
committee. I have made many such comparisons ; I will give
one.

"Poisoned at the Souece" 371

Among the men who testified before the Senate committee
was Lee Calvin, a mine-guard of the Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency. Calvin later made an affidavit, in the course of which
he told of his experiences on board the "Bull Moose Special,"
an armored train which was taken up and down the railroads
of these valleys, to shoot up the homes and tent-colonies of
the strikers with a machine-gun. This "Bull Moose Special"
was at the disposal, not merely of the state militia and of the
mine-guards, but of the mine-operators as well. Calvin tells
how he was invited by Quinn Morton, the largest coal-operator
in the Kanawha Valley, to join a shooting party on the night
of February 7, 1913. There were two or three dozen men
with several boxes of guns; also the machine-gun. I quote
from an affidavit by Calvin :

When we got near Holly Grove the brakeman commenced turn-
ing down the lights. When the engineer came in front of Holly
Grove he gave two short blasts from the whistle. I was leaning out
of the window and they commenced firing out of the baggage car.
Flashes, lights, reports and cracks from the machine-gun took me all
at once, and the train was a long stream of fire which commenced
coming out of the Catling gun. In about twenty or thirty seconds
there came a flash here and there from the tents. About four came
from the tents altogether, and they were about 100 feet apart, it
would seem to me. No shots had been fired from the tents prior
to the time the shots were fired from the train.

Do not imagine that these incidents rest upon the credibility
of Lee Calvin alone. They were sworn to by numerous per-
sons of all classes. Mr. Quinn Morton himself admitted before
the Senate committee that he had called up the superintendent
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and ordered the "Bull
Moose Special" for that night; also that he had gone to a
hardware store and purchased thirty Springfield rifles and
taken them in a taxi-cab to the train. He objected to the train
being referred to as "his" train — explaining that by the objec-
tion he meant that he did not own the train !

Also there was introduced the evidence of many persons
who happened to be at the muzzle-end of Mr. Morton's thirty
Springfield rifles r for example, Mrs. Estep, wife of a miner
in Holly Grove:

Senator Kenyon: "Had there been any disorder in the settle-
ment that night? Had you beard any shooting before that time?"
Mrs. Estep: "No, sir."

373 The Beass Check

Senator Kenyon: "Could you hear this train coming?"

Mrs. Estep : "We heard it after it commenced shooting. We had

not heard it before. We had our doors closed."
Senator Kenyon: "Could you see the train?''
Mrs. Estep : "No, sir ; I never went out the front way at all."
Senator Kenyon: "When did you know your husband was shot?"
Mrs. Estep: "I didn't know he was killed until after the train

quit shooting, and I heard some of them speak to him and call his

name, and I never heard him answer."

And now, put yourself in the place of the Associated Press
correspondent, with your office in the Adjt. General's office in'
the State House. This train, you understand, starts from
Charleston, and comes back to Charleston, and militia officers
are on it, and deputy sheriffs are on it. You know Quinn
Morton well ; you know everybody concerned well ; you are in
the midst of the gossip and excitement, you see the warriors
come back from the fray, boasting of their achievements,
laughing and "kidding" one another. You know that they
have done this thing several times before, and intend to go
on doing it. It is your duty to furnish the American people
with news concerning their doings.

The matter is a ticklish one, because Quinn Morton is the
largest coal operator in the Kanawha Valley. Of course you
cannot mention his name in such a connection; you cannot
imply that any mine-operator ever had anything to do with
violence, nor must you admit that a striker was killed during
a machine-gun attack upon a village at night. You cover the
death of Mrs. Estep's husband in one clever sentence as
follows :

According to information received here late today, Robert Estep,
a miner, was killed last night during the rioting at Mucklow.

The above sentence is from an Associated Press dispatch.
And here are the three dispatches in which the news of the
"Bull Moose Special" was sent out to the world. I give them
exactly as they stand, with all the telegraph marks and tech-
nicalities. I might mention that the word "correct," which has
been inserted, is an "A. P." mark ; I do not know its relation
to the dispatch. Also I might add that the words "passenger
train" are Associated Press euphemism for "Bull Moose
Special." You may not recognize the events, but this is
really the same "Bull Moose" expedition that Lee Calvin
and Quinn Morton and Mrs. Estep have just told us about:

"Poisoned at the Souece" 373

bulletin

Charleston, W. Va^ Feb. 7.
Conditions are critical tonight in Paint and Cabin Creeks, Kanawha
County, where a coal strike has been on over a year. A Chesapeake
and Ohio passenger train was shot up late tonight; the town of
Mucklow, W. Va., was riddled with bullets and a physician, with a
man djring driving through the district, was fired upon. When the
physician with his patient arrived at the hospital, the patient was dead.

Will Be Add,

H.

A T J— 12 :55 A. M.

BULLETIN

Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 7.
(Add bulletin.)
The Chesapeake and Ohio passenger train ran for half a mile
under fire, but no one was injured. At Mucklow a majority of houses
bear marks from rifles, but in this place no one was injured.

Late tonight a conference was held with Governor Glasscock,
during which Sheriff Bonner Hill asked the governor that troops be
sent into the strike territory. Sheriff Hill notified the governor that
the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad would have a special train ready
to move tile troops at once.

Will Be Add,

H.

A 2 J— 1 :11 A. M.

BULLETIN

Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 7.
(Add bulletin.)
At midnight striking miners were gathering from Paint and Cabin
Creeks in the vicinity of Mucklow. There is anxiety here as to the
next move of the strikers.

The engineer and two passengers were injured when the passenger
train on the Chesapeak and Ohio was fired upon. (CORRECT.)

Deputy sheriffs waiting for such an attack as occurred tonight
were prepared. The officers directed bullets into Mucklow from rapid
fire guns and rifles. The miners' camp was subjected to a heavy fire
and whether the shots were effective is not known.

Mucklow is surrounded by mountains and the fighting between
strikers and the authorities is difficult.

H.
A 2 J— 1:22 A. M.

These are your night dispatches. Next day more details
come in, and you send a message to the effect that the sheriff
and his deputies cannot get into the miners' camp to see if
any of the campers have been killed or injured. Then, realiz-
ing that serious trouble is coming, you wonder whether you
may not have distorted the news a little more than is per-

374 The Beass Check

mitted, even to an Associated Press correspondent. You fear
that you have put in a fatal dose of poison, and decide to
protect yourself by sending a small quantity of antidote —
such a wee, small quantity of antidote ! You write :

Shooting from the train, attacked on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad during the night, was in the direction of the camp,, and it
was feared that if any of the women and children had been hurt the
sheriff and his men would be unable to restrain the angry men as
they outnumber the posse ten to one, and are said to be well armed.

Such is the news, and all the news which the Associated
Press sent to the public about that exploit of the "Bull Moose
Special" on the night of February 7, 1913. And now do you
think, or do you not think, that the editors of the "Masses"
were justified in their cartoon alleging that this news was
"Poisoned at the Source" ? I think so ; also I think that Sena-
tor John W. Kern of Indiana was justified in his statements
made in the United States Senate three months later, regarding
the suppression of other news from this coal strike :

But to me the most startling fact bearing on the subject under
discussion was this: Here was a proceeding not only unusual but
almost unheard of being carried on almost in sight of the capital of
West Virginia and within 300 miles of the National capital. One
of the best-known women in America — a woman past her eightieth
year — a woman known and loved by millions of the' working people
of America for the promotion of whose welfare and for the ameliora-
tion of whose condition she had dedicated her life — ^a woman so
honored and beloved by these millions that she was known to all of
them in every humble home as Mother Jones, was being tried in this
unusual way before this mock tribunal.

The fact of the trial was sensational. The subject matter of the
trial was of the deepest interest. The incidents of such a trial would
be of necessity, not only sensational, but would interest the country.

And yet the great news-gathering agencies of the country, active,
alert, with a large, intelligent force searching everywhere for items of
news, were not able to furnish a line of information to their news-
paper patrons concerning this astonishing proceeding.

This fact speaks volumes as to the conditions in that terror-
stricken country. A zone had been established for these infamous
proceedings for the purpose of suppressing information concerning
them.

I was informed by a representative of the greatest of all these
news-gathering agencies that the proceedings were not reported because
the conditions there were such that it was not safe for newspaper
men to enter the field to secure the facts for publication.

This same agency has had a representative in the City of Mexico
throughout the period of the recent revolutions. He was not afraid
to remain there and report faithfully the news while the streets were

"Poisoned at the Source" 375

being plowed and mowed by the deadly missiles from the cannons of
contending armies. But in West Virginia the situation was such that
the American reading public was kept in profound ignorance of the
startling happenings there because of a reign of terror which could
not be braved by the dauntless representatives of the American Press
associations.

This single fact alone will justify fully the most searching in-
vestigation.

I have discussed in Chapter XLII the mystery of why the
Associated Press dropped the case against the "Masses." I
always prefer to give both sides of a question, and it was my
hope that I might be able to give the Associated Press explana-
tion of this mystery. My hope was roused by Mr. Stone him-
self, who entered into correspondence with me, and made the
flat-footed statement : "I am glad to give anyone information
respecting this organization." I, being a trusting person, took
Mr. Stone at his word, and wrote him a courteous letter, put-
ting to him four questions, as follows :

1. Was any investigation made of my wife's complaint to you
of the false report sent out by the Associated Press that she was
arrested on April 29, 1914, in New York City? And why was no
correction of this false report ever made, in spite of my wife's written
request? Every New York newspaper and every other press asso-
ciation in America sent out a correct report of my arrest, only the
Associated Press reported that my wife was arrested.

2. What was the result of the investigation which you promised
to make concerning my article published in the "Appeal to Reason"
in the latter part of May, 1914, telling of the refusal of the Asso-
ciated Press to send out a report of a deliberate lie told by Gov.
Ammons of Colorado to President Wilson? Mr. John P. Gavit of the
"New York Evening Post" showed me your letter, promising to in-
vestigate this matter.

3. What was the reason the Associated Press decided to drop the
libel suit against the "Masses"?

4. What action, if any, did the Associated Press take concerning
the charges published in "Pearson's Magazine" by Charles Edward
Russell, dealing^ with its gross and systematic misrepresentation of
the Calumet strikers?

I put these four questions politely, and in entire good faith,
and instantly my correspondence with Mr. Stone comes to an
end! I wait day by day; I wait with sorrow and yearning,
but no answer comes from Mr. Stone. I delay sending my
book to the printer for more than two months, hoping to get
a reply from Mr. Stone ; but I get no reply !

I now publicly address to Mr. Stone one final communica-
tion. I implore him, for the sake of the honor of the great

376 The Bkass Check

institution which he represents, for the sake of the good name
of all American Journalism, not to swallow in silence the
charges published in a book called "The Brass Gieck." I im-
plore him to have the author of that volume arrested for
criminal libel — and when the case is ready for trial, not to
drop it !

My wife reads this chapter and asks me to omit the last
paragraph. She says I am "bow-wowing" at Mr. Stone.

I think it over and decide to accept the metaphor. I pic-
ture a big dog walking down the street, a stately and dignified
dog, and a very little dog comes up behind him and says "bow-
wow," and the big dog puts his tail between his legs and runs.
However we may think about this incident, one thing cer-
tainly has been accomplished — ^the big dog has been robbed of
his pose. Never again will we regard him as a stately and
dignified dog!

CHAPTER LIX

THE PRESS AND THE WAR

War came upon the world, and the writer, as a student of
Journalism, watched the great tide of public opinion. There
had been newspapers in America which had kept a careful
pretense of impartiality; under the pressure of war this pre-
tense was forgotten. For example, the "New York Times."
Everyone would admit that the editorial page of the "Times"
is class-propaganda, but the "Times" tries not to let you
know that its news-columns are class-propaganda. It avoids
the cruder blunders, such as false headlines. But when the
threat of war came, and the "Times" was trying to force the
country into war, the "Times" forgot even that precaution.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1915, some twelve hundred clergymen
in New York preached sermons. The "Times" selected eleven
ftf these sermons and put them all under this headline :

PREPAREDNESS FROM MANY PULPITS

Thanksgiving Sermons Justify War for Defense of American
Liberty and Ideals

Then you read the sermons, and what did you find ? Three
of them contained utterances which might be constrtied as
urging preparedness; the other eight contained not a word
in reference to preparedness !

And the same with the magazines. There had been maga-
zines which in the old days would give excuses ior not pub-
lishing this or that — ^they were concerned with questions of
dignity, of art; they could not lend their columns to propa-
ganda. But now these magazines became frankly organs of
propaganda. Long before America entered the war, "Mc-
Clure's" turned all its energies to a campaign for "prepared-
ness." The "American," the "Metropolitan," the "Outlook"
did the same. "Current Opinion" abandoned its policy of
reprinting from other publications, and introduced propaganda
of its own. The "Literary Digest," supposed to be an im-
partial survey of public opinion, became a partisan organ of
hate. Says a writer in "Reedy's Mirror";

377

378 The Bkass Check

The standardizing of the press had already proceeded to inordinate
lengths before the war. As one sectional bookcase may differ from
another of the same pattern only in its greater or lesser number of
lections, so differs one American newspaper from another American
newspaper. However, some small opportunity for individuality, for
thought or pretense of thought, still existed, but even this has ended.
With the opening of the war the American press ceased to think.
The abstention has been so complete and prolonged that it may never
be possible to resume the habit of thinking.

Look over these newspapers as they come in from the mails.
Flag-waving of the cheapest, most brainless sort, Liberty Bonds,
Thrift Stamps, Red Cross. This is the gamut that has countless
repetition from New York to San Francisco, supplemented only by
supercensored, mercilessly standardized stuff from the fighting fronts.

The writer of this book gave his support to the war against
Germany, and has no apology to make for that course. He
believed that the world would be a safer place for radicals
to work in when the Kaiser had been overthrown j he still be-
lieves this — even though at the moment it seems that the re-
sult of our fighting has been to set up new imperialisms in
Italy, France, England and America.

But my support of the war did not mean that I had given
myself into the hands of war-profiteers. I saw that the old-
time plunderers of America were among the war's most ardent
supportiers, and they went right on with their plundering —
becoming "dollar-a-day" men in Washington, with a great cry
of patriotism, and letting themselves contracts out of which
hundreds of millions of profit were made! The Beef Trust,
the Steel Trust, the Oil Trust, the Powder Trust, multiplied
many times over the profits they were taking from the neces-
sities of the people ; also they dictated legislation which spared
their profits, and saddled the cost of the war upon future
generations. A war has to be won with materials then existing
in the world, or immediately produced ; it manifestly cannot be
won with materials produced a generation later. The only
question is, shall the necessary materials be taken from the
owners by means of taxes, or shall they be borrowed, shall the
labor of future generations be pledged in exchange? This is
clear and simple ; but if you tried to explain it to the people
during the war you would be lynched, or sent to jail for
twenty years.

It was the grand chance for the plunderers of America to
put their enemies, the radicals, out of the way. Many of these
radicals opposed the war, but others were put out of the way

The Pbess and the War 379

merely for opposing the profiteers, and they received sentences
which, for ferocity, exceed anything in the records of the Rus-
sian Tsardom. Some two thousand of them are still in jail,
their sentences aggregating twenty-five thousand years.

It would have been a simple matter to persuade the So-
cialists to support the war. We know today that Nicholas
Lenine asked only a promise of support from America, offering
to repudiate the Brest-Litovsk treaty and join the war on
Kaiserism. As to labor at home, an intelligent army officer
showed the way in the Northwest; he gave the lumbermen
an eight-hour day, decent living conditions, and generous
wages, and so turned the I. W. W. of the spruce country into
a patriotic society. But elsewhere the army officers were less
intelligent, and the profiteers had their way ; in the oil country
of Kansas they threw scores of I. W. W. organizers into jail
without trial, and held them there for a couple of years. They
are holding some thirty of them still, and my mail is full of
pitiful letters from poor devils who are asked to raise ten
thousand dollars bail. All over the country this was done —
in a frenzy of public excitement, deliberately created by the
capitalist press.

The story of what the newspapers did to American radicals
in this crisis would be unbelievable — if you had not read the
rest of this book. Thus, for example, the case of Bannwart,
a Boston pacifist, one of a committee which called upon Senator
Lodge to protest against the declaration of war. Senator
Lodge lost his temper and struck Bannwart in the face; and
all over the country went the report that Senator Lodge had
been assaulted in his office by a pacifist ! The Senator became
a national hero; the Boston newspapers printed columns and
columns about the incident, and when Bannwart called upon
the Senator to admit the truth, he not only refused to admit
it, but gave out for publication many telegrams congratulating
him upon his heroism. No newspaper would publish Bann-
wart's side, and he was helpless for two years, until his suit
for damages was about to come up in court; then the Senator
gave way, and admitted in writing that he had struck the first
blow. You have been acquainted with the "Evening Tran-
script," organ of Boston's aristocracy of wealth and culture,
which publishes half-page advertisements of "Harvard Beer
1,000 pure," and full-page advertisements of the arguments
of gas company attorneys, and sends out "dope" for the "New

380 The Bkass Check

Haven" plunderers ; so you will be prepared to hear that the
"Transcript" buried this apology of Senator Lodge in a remote
corner, and without comment!

Or take the experience of my friend Feigenbaum, Socialist
Assemblyman of New York State. The Socialist assemblymen
had been protesting against the custom of the machine gang
to drive through bills without consideration. They resolved
to put a stop to the custom; whereupon the machine leaders
set a little trap for the Socialists. A bill was introduced, with-
out being read, and the speaker asked unanimous consent to
advance it to the second reading. The leader of the Socialist
group immediately objected. The bill had not been read, he
declared, no one on the floor knew what was in the bill, no one
even knew the name of the bill. The speaker cut him short:
"No explanation is necessary. Your objection is sufficient."
So the bill, under the rules, went over to the next day. Says
Feigenbaum :

The members drifted out to the ctoak -rooms, or they remained
at their desks. They didn't know what the bill was about, because
nine-tenths of them hadn't read it, and not more than four or five
were in the secret of the day's mysterious doings.

But next morning the Socialists found out what had hap-
pened. The bill was to turn over certain lands in Saratoga
County to the War Department, and the Socialists had been
guilty of stopping war legislation which was desperately
needed! The "New York Tribune" carried an elaborate ac-
count of a tempestuous scene, in which the speaker had
"scathingly rebuked, the Socialist leader. The members had
swarmed around the Socialists, shaking their fists in their
faces, threatening them with physical violence; also, the
Socialist leader had refused to stand at the playing of the
national anthem. Says Feigenbaum : "The whole story was
a fabrication, pure and simple, out of whole cloth." And he
tells what happened afterwards —

A campaign of vilification hitherto tmheard of. It went so far
that Albany papers called for the raiding of the rooms we occupied,
called for a boycott of us by shop-keepers and restaurant-men in
Albany, and gave high praise to a drunken rufiian, an ex-prizefighter,
member of the Assembly, who in a drunken fit of temper called for
the lynching of the Socialists. This speech was highly praised edi-
torially in Albany and Troy.

During the war our industrial autocracy has learned to

The Pbess and itie War 381

organize for propaganda; it has learned the arts of hate.
Today all the energies which were directed against the Kaiser
have been turned against the radicals; also the spy-system
which the government developed for the war has been turned
against the radicals. Government agents raid their offices and
seize their letters, and these letters are spread broadcast in
the capitalist press — duly doctored, of course, and supplied
with commentaries to distort their meaning.

For example, the "Lusk Committee" of the New York
State Legislature holds a secret session with the executives
of the New York newspapers (June 3, 1919, at the Murray
Hill Hotel), and lays out its campaign in detail. It then pro-
ceeds, with a carload of soldiers and detectives, to raid the
Rand School of Social Science; taking along a secret service
agent of the British government, which is shooting radicals
in Ireland and India, and wishes to find out all it can about
their supporters in America. They find a manuscript, outlining
a plan for propaganda among negroes. It was a rejected
manuscript, as it happens; but the Lusk Committee "accepts"
it, and spreads it broadcast. I shiver, contemplating the day
when they raid my office, and publish "all the queer manu-
scripts that arrive in my day's' mail ! Manuscripts of health-
cures, manuscripts of bible-prophecies, manuscripts of plans
to abolish money, to communicate with Mars, to exterminate
the vermin in the Los Angeles County Jail!

Also they find a circular ol the Rand School, saying that
the Socialists "must prepare to take over the government."
They publish this in the newspapers with horrified clamor:
Sedition ! Treason ! Let the charter of the Rand School be
annulled! As if there were any political party or political
association in America which does not propose to take over
the government! As if there were anything else which any
political party or political association could propose!

Among the other seditious documents are some copies of
"The i'rofits of Religion," which gives occasion for sarcasm
fron the investigators. They propose to investigate "the
profits of agitation" ; so they spread broadcast the fact that
Scott Nearing was paid six hundred dollars by the Rand
School-^and deny Nearing an opportunity to testify that part
of this was payment for lectures delivered outside of the
school, for which the school had collected the money on a

382 The Beass Check

percentage basis ; and the balance for lecturing at the school,
at a rate approximating ten cents per week for each student!

They lie about the pacifists and those whom they call
Bolsheviks; they lie equally about a man like myself, who
supported the war, and is opposing Bolshevism. In the ac-
counts of the proceedings of the Senate Committee investigat-
ing "Bolshevism in America," there was submitted, according
to newspaper accounts, a long list of writings "urging the
overthrow of the United States government by violence";
among the writers named being Upton Sinclair. I at once
wrote to Solicitor Lamar of the postoffice department, to
Major Humes, and to Senator Overman — ^these being the
parties who had compiled the writings in question. I explained
to these gentlemen that for twenty years I had been writing
for the precise purpose of avoiding "the overthrow of the
United States government by violence," and I requested to
know what writings of mine could have justified their charge.
I have letters from all three of these parties, stating that noth-
ing of mine was included, or had been included in the list;
the published report of the Overman Committee reveals that
this statement is correct ; yet the dispatch including my name
was sent broadcast over the country by the Associated Press —
and I am without redress !

The listing of anecdotes of this sort is merely a question
of the amount of space one is willing to give. The United
States government is deporting Hindu revolutionists to be
executed by the British government when they reach India.
Prof. Richard Gottheil of Columbia University writes to the
"New York Times" denying that this is so. Robert Morse
Lovett, editor of the "Dial," writes to the "Times," citing case
after case, upon British official authority. And the "Times"
refuses to print Mr. Lovett's letter ! A friend of mine writes
to Prof. Gottheil about it, and he answers that he wishes the
"Times" would print Mr. Lovett's letter, because he believes
in fair play. But the "Times" does not believe in fair play!

In the same way, the "Times" attacks "Jimmie Higgins."
In the last chapters of this story an American soldier is rep-
resented as being tortured in an American military prison.
Says the "Times":

Mr. Sinclair should produce the evidence upon which he base<
his astounding accusations, if he has any. If he has simply written o(

The Press and the Wae 383

hearsay evidence, or, worse still, let himself be guided by his craving
to be sensational, he has laid himself open not only to censure but
to punishment.

In reply to this, I send to the "Times" a perfectly respect-
ful letter, citing scores of cases, and telling the "Times" where
hundreds of other cases may be found. The "Times" returns
this letter without comment. A couple of months pass, and
as a result of the ceaseless agitation of the radicals, there
is a congressional investigation, and evidence of atrocious
cruelties is forced into the newspapers. The "Times" pub-
lishes an editorial entitled, "Prison Camp Cruelties," the first
sentence of which reads: "The fact that American soldiers
confined in prison-camps have been treated with extreme
brutality may now be regarded as established." So again I
write a polite letter to the "Times," pointing out that I think
they owe me an apology. And how does the "Times" treat
that ? It alters my letter without my permission ! It cuts out
my request for an apology, and also my quotation of its own
words calling for my punishment ! The "Times," caught in a
hole, refuses to let me remind its readers that it wanted me
"punished" for telling the truth ! "All the News that's Fit to
Print!"

Or take the case of Henry Ford, who brings suit against the
"Chicago Tribune" for libel, and cites five lies in one single
news item:

Lie No. 1. That guardsmen employed by Ford would lose their
places.

Lie No. 2. That no provision would be made for their dependents.

Lie No. 3. That their families could get along as best they might.

Lie No. 4. That when they returned they would have to apply
for their old jobs as strangers.

Lie No. 5. That this rule applied to the Ford plants everywhere.

At the trial it was proven that all these statements were
false. All the Ford workers who were drafted to Mexico had
their wages paid to their families while they were away. On
the other hand it was shown, through the testimony of Joseph
Medill Patterson, one of the editors of the "Tribune," and a
renegade Socialist, that he had ordered the stopping of the pay
of all those "Tribune" men who were drafted to Europe! I
quote the testimony.

"How many of your employes went to the great war?"
"About two hundred and sixty-eight."

384 The Bbass Check

"None of them drew salaries?"

"No."

"But you drew your salary when you went over-seas, didn't you ?"

"And your salary is about twenty thousand dollars a year, isn't it?''
Witness admitted that it was.

"The World's Greatest Newspaper."

Or take the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota. All
through the war the newspapers strove to make this appear a
didoyal organization. The League held a convention at St.
Paul, at which hundreds of speeches were made; and the As-
sociated Press found it possible to make one of the speakers,
La Follette, appear disloyal by misquoting him. So it featured
La Follette — and reported the other speakers hardly at all.
As this book is going to press, the League bank is raided, and
the farmers by thousands come pouring into Fargo in the rain,
and at two enormous gatherings they pledge themselves to
make their bank the biggest in the state. The bank is reopened,
and on the first day forty-five thousand dollars is put in and
only nine thousand taken out. And how is all this handled by
the Associated Press ? Hear the "Idaho Leader" :

' Several newspaper representatives from St. Paul and Minneapolis
were present to send as unfavorable reports of the great meeting to
their papers as they could, and the Associated Press, the news agency
which supplies the "Boise Statesman" with its daily fables from North
Dakota, evidently fearing that their local manager was not capable of
falsifying in the manner which big business demands, sent a special
representative out from St. Paul to report the meeting. And this "A.
P. representative did himself proud, or rather he did the bidding of
his masters.

Among other highly colored and untrue statements which the As-
sociated Press representatives made was that "when the speaking was
ended in the auditorium and a recess taken before the evening meeting,
the crowds made a rush for the doors to get away so that they would
not have to subscribe for stock in the Scandinavian bank!"

The crowd did make a rush but it was not for the doors. The
crowd rushed, jostled, and pushed, in the anxiety of dozens of men to
reach the front of the building, where a number of persons took sub-
scriptions for stock. Those handling the subscriptions were swamped,
and many men were forced to_ stand in line for a long time before
they were waited on.

CHAPTER LX
THE CASE OF RUSSIA

But the perfect case of journalistic knavery, the case which
in the annals of history will take precedence over all others,
past or present, is the case of Russia. You might say that all
previous experience of the capitalist press of America in per-
verting and distorting news was but training for what it was
to do to the Russian revolution. Say to yourself as follows:
American Journalism did thus and so to an American author
who advocated the abolition of privilege and exploitation;
what would this Journalism do to a hundred and eighty million
people who rose up and actually put an end to privilege and
exploitation upon the half of two continents?

Let me make clear at the outset my point of view, oft
repeated. I am not a Bolshevik, and have never been a Bol-
shevik. I understand that a Bolshevik is one who repudiates
political action, and wishes to accomplish the social revolution
by mass action of the proletariat, the direct overthrow of our
present capitalist government and the setting up of a govern-
ment by councils of the workers, som,ething corresponding to
our present trade union councils and conventions. For my
part, I agree with the syndicalists in thinking that the best way
to govern industry is through trade unions; that is the only
real industrial democracy. But I believe that the trade unions
can get this power by the ballot, backed by the mass strike. I
don't believe that it will be necessary for the workers to seize
guns and turn the politicians out of office ; I believe that they
can elect their own politicians, or force even capitalist legisla-
tures to pass laws recognizing union control of industry.

I am well aware that this method will be slower, but I
believe it will be quicker in the long run, because it will avoid
the waste incidental to civil war, and the possibilities of failure
and temporary reaction. Anybody can see that, as a matter
of business, it would pay the workers better to continue work-
ing for the capitalists a few months or even a few years
longer, than to take a course which might result in burning
down the factories and getting the best leaders of the move-
ment stood up against a wall and shot.

2S 385

386 The Bbass Check

But such a program, of course, can be effective only in a
country where political rights are recognized. Russia was not
such a country. The Russian people had been held down by
an utterly ruthless and utterly corrupt despotism, deprived of
all opportunity to organize and to educate themselves, to
acquire experience in government affairs ; so, when they rose,'
they turned upon their oppressors the weapons they had been
taught to understand. We, who were born in a more fortunate
land, and have learned to use, if only half successfully, the
ballot and public discussion in the settlement of our affairs —
what attitude were we to take towards the Russian people,
striking out blindly against their oppressors, groping for liberty
and life?

The first revolution, the Kerensky revolution, was a polit-
ical one, and that suited us fairly well; it made no threat
against property, and it proposed to support our war. Our
capitalist newspapers had no difficulty in getting the news
about it, and had no objection to letting us read this news.
But then came the second revolution, the Bolshevik revolu-
tion, and that did threaten property, and proposed to withdraw
from our war. How did we treat that ?

We had been training ourselves for a generation, so as to
be instantly ready ; we had been training ourselves in the office
of Mr. Hearst's "Cosmopolitan Magazine," where Mr. Hearst
had a twenty-five-thousand-doUar-a-year journalistic wizard by
the name of Edgar Sisson. When we needed a molder of
opinion for Russia, we sent this Hearst wizard across the seas,
where he came upon a set of documents proving that Lenin
and Trotsky were German agents. These documents had been
examined and rejected as forgeries by Raymond Robins, also
by the British Embassy, none too favorably disposed to the
Bolsheviks ; but matters like that do not trouble Hearst editors,
who have learned to think in headlines. The "Sisson docu-
ments" were shipped to Washington, and issued under the
authority of the United Spates government, and published in
every newspaper in America.

We know today who were the real pro-Germans in Russia.
Viscount French, in his recently published book, has told us
that the Russian Court was rotten with pro-Germanism, and
that if it had not been for treason among the Russian aris-
tocracy, the war would have been won two years earlier. As
for Lenin and Trotsky, not only were they bitter enemies ofi

The Case of Russia 387

the German government, they were at this time offering to
reject the Brest-Litovsk treaty, if America would support
them; but America was a virtuous capitalist nation, and the
entire capitalist press of America was a unit in proclaiming
that our country should have no relations with men who re-
fused to pay interest on the Tsar's debts to J. P. Morgan &
Company.

All the lying power of our Journalism was turned against
the Russian Soviets; and if you have read this book without
skipping, you know what that lying power is. No tale was too
grotesque to be believed and spread broadcast. In the same
week we would read that Trotsky had fled to Spain, that he
had been put in jail by Lenin, that he had been seeking a job
on the "Appeal to Reason," Girard, Kansas ! They published
so many inventions that they couldn't keep track of them.
Here are two paragraphs from a single issue of one news-
paper :

Nicofei Lenin, the BolsheYist Premier, is the only prominent Bol-
shevist left who appears to lead an austere life. — ^"New York Times,"
February 26, 1919.

Premier Lenin, refugees say, is not affected by the fopd problem.
His bill for fruit and vegetables in a recent month amounted to sixty
thousand rubles.— "New York Times," February 26, 1919.

In his book, "Russia in 1919," Arthur Ransom tells how
in Finland he read detailed accounts of mutiny and revolt in
Petrograd, the city being bombarded by naval guns. He went
into Petrograd and found the city peaceful, and everybody
laughing at his tales. Returning to England he found that
the tales had been forwarded to England, and published and
universally believed. As I write these words, I read in my
paper every other day of the fall of Petrograd. The accounts
are detailed, some of them are "official," and they continue for .
weeks. But finally I read that the anti-Bolshevik armies are
in retreat from Petrograd!

Or take the "nationalization of women," the most grotesque
scare-crow ever constructed to terrify a highly moral people. I
have shown you how the imagination of "kept" journalists
runs to foul tales about sex orgies of radicals. A comic paper
in Moscow published such a "skit" on Bolshevism, and the
outcome is explained in the following from the> "Isvestija,"
the official organ of the Central Soviet Government, May 18,
1918:

388 The Brass Check

Moscow Soviet decision. — ^The Moscow newspaper, the "Evening
Life," for printing an invented decree regarding the socialization of
women, in the issue of the 3rd of May, No. 36, shall be closed for ever
and fined 25,000 roubles.

And then again, in the city of Saratov, in central Russia,
the Anarchists were making trouble, and some wag, to dis-
credit the Anarchists, invented an elaborate decree, signed,
"The Free Association of Anarchists of Saratov." This
decree was discovered one morning, posted in several parts of
the city. An American official, Oliver M. Sayler, who was in
Saratov, wrote the story in the "New Republic," March 15,
1919. He visited the Anarchist clubs, and found them boiling
with indignation — calling it a "Bolshevist plot"! Needless to
say, of course, the decree had no relation to reality; the
Anarchists never had any power to enforce any decree,
whether in Saratov or anywhere else in Russia; several hun-
dred Anarchists had been jailed by the Bolsheviki. But that,
of course, made no difference to the editors of capitalist news-
papers in America, to whom Anarchists, Bolsheviki, and So-
cialists were all the same ; from one end of the country to the
other this decree took the front page. The "Los Angeles '
Times" published it with a solemn assurance to its readers
that the authenticity of the decree might be accepted without
question. And forthwith all our capitalist clergymen rose up
in their pulpits to denounce the Bolsheviki as monsters and
moral perverts, and a good part of the moving picture
machinery of Southern California has been set to work con-
structing romances around this obscene theme.

The "New Europe," which had first published the story,
made a full retraction and apology. Harold Williams, who
had sent the story to England, also apologized. The American
State Department denied the story officially, February 28,
1919. Jerome Davis, of the American Red Cross, denied it
from first-hand knowledge in the "Independent," March 15,
1919. But did you read these apologies and denials in Ameri-
can capitalist newspapers ? You did not ! It would not be too
much to say that nine people out of ten in America today
firmly believe that women have been "nationalized" in Russia,
or at any rate that the Bolsheviki attempted it. In the "World
Tomorrow," for July, 1919, I come upon a letter signed Rem-
ington Rogers, Tulsa, Oklahoma. I find something very quaint
and pathetic about this letter. How does it strike you?

The Case of Russia 389

I find that like most radical papers, you assume that your reader
knows a great many things that may be trite in the discussion of parlor
Socialists, but with which the average citizen is not in the least
familiar. For example, in your May issue, page 141, I find the asser-
tion_ that the reports purporting to show how family life had been
officially demoralized in Russia are "now happily proved false." If this
is the fact, no such proof has leaked into the newspapers or other
periodicals to which 1 subscribe, and in view of the fact that we have
what purport to be authentic copies of the official edicts and decrees, I
cannot believe that these reports have been proved false.

And here is a letter from Alice Stone Blackwell, which,
needless to say, could only be published in some radical paper.
It appeared in the "Public," New York:

Catherine Breshkovsky "the Grandmother of the Russian Revolu-
tion," is getting badly misquoted. She is astonished to see how dif-
ferent some of the press reports are from what she really said. She
tells me she declared the other daiy that she would work twenty years
longer to keep Russia from having another Tsar, and she was reported
as saying that she would work twenty years longer to get the Tsar
back.

She also denied that women have been "nationalized," or "made
common property," or that the Government puts any compulsion upon
them in matters of sex. She said to me : "Women have more freedom
in Russia now than they ever had before." As Madame Breshkovsky
is strongly opposed to the Bolshevist regime, her denial of this partic-
ular accusation may be accepted as conclusive.

I have at several places in this book portrayed the degen-
eracy of "McClure's Magazine," since it has become an organ
of privilege; also I have mentioned Newell Dwight Hillis,
agent of the Clerical Camouflage, and his knavish pamphlet
against the Colorado strikers. Now we see "McClure's" hiring
Hillis to vilify the Russian Soviets. After all these Tienials
have been published, and are available to all honest men, this
agent of the Clerical Camouflage contributes to "McClure's"
(June, 1919) a long article calling for the blood of the Russian
people. "McQure's" puts over the article a picture represent-
ing a hideous fiend with a torch and bomb ; also this editorial
statement :

Dr. Hillis's articles have brought in a flood of letters of com-
tnendation. He writes as he preaches, fearlessly, truthfully.

I ask : Could the re-crucifixion of Christ go farther than
the application of the words "fearlessly, truthfully," to the
following dastardly lie :

390 The Beass Check

It IS now conceded that the interior towns and cities of Russia have
gone over to this nationalization of women.

This agent of the Clerical Camouflage of course portrays
Russia as a chaos of murder and bloodshed; in which our
whole capitalist press agrees. We now know that most of the
time Petrograd and Moscow were the most orderly capitals in
Europe; but our newspaper correspondents in Stockholm and
Copenhagen and Odessa and Omsk, meeting in the cafes with
exiled Russian noblemen, thought nothing of standing a few
thousand Russians against the wall of the Kremlin and shoot-
ing them in a news despatch. For weeks they harrowed us
with a projected "St. Bartholomew's Eve Massacre," in which
all the bourgeoisie in Russia were to be destroyed. Bartholo-
mew's Eve came, and next morning I looked in the papers, and
saw that there had been a general amnesty for political
prisoners in Russia — something for which I am still petitioning
the President of my own country! I saw no mention of the
massacre ; but this did not surprise me. I, too, have been lied
about by Capitalist Journalism on the front page, and have
seen the retraction buried in small print among the advertise-
ments.

That there was much killing in Russia, I do not doubt ; but
whether there was more killing than under the government of
the Tsar — that is the real question. Frazier Hunt tells us that
in the first fourteen months of their rule, the Bolsheviki
executed four thousand, five hundred persons, mostly for
stealing and speculation; whereas, in twelve months after the
1905 revolution, Stolypin, minister of the Tsar, caused the
execution of thirty-two thousand, seven htmdred and seventy-
three persons. That is about the usual proportion of the
White Terror to the Red, and the proportion that would have
prevailed had the Allies succeeded in their plan of getting
Kolchak to Moscow.

Our papers were giving us lurid accounts of the Bolsheviki
advancing in the Baltic provinces, burning and slaying as they
went ; but the conspiracy slipped a cog, and there crept into an
Associated Press dispatch a little paragraph which gave the
game away. In reading it, understand that these provinces
are a part of Russia, which the Russians were taking back
from the Germans :

Warsaw, Dec. 29. — The Bolsheviki are advancing rapidly toward

The Case of Russia 391

Vilna, and are favored by mild weather. Their advance guards are
said to be orderly, well clothed and well armed. They have committed
no depredations except where they met with resistance.

And here is another from Berlin, Feb. 15, 1919, which
gives us the real reason for the world-wide dread of the
Bolsheviki. Ralph Rotheit, correspondent of the Berlin
"Vossische Zeitung," visited the Bolshevik line at Vilna.

He pictured the situation as extremely pessimistic, although so far
the Bolsheviki have always been defeated by the Germans whenever
they ventured skirmishing. However, Rotheit writes, the Bolsheviki do
not rely so much on fighting as on corrupting opponents by never-
ceasing wireless propaganda, and by sending emissaries into the dis-
tricts still occupied by the Germans, and by Bolshevik literature with
which the latter's positions are flooded. Rotheit says unfortunately
the effect of this propaganda at Kovno, headquarters of the German
commander, was only too evident, as in many other places on German
territory, as well as the Russian and Polish.

Here we have the real quarrel with the Soviets, the real
reason why they must not, cannot be permitted to survive.
They are propagandists; day and night they agitate, they
preach and they print — and for some reason, the more loudly
we proclaim that their propaganda is false, the more deeply
we seem to dread its success! Since when have we lost our
faith in the might of truth? Since when have we decided that
error must be fought with bullet and machine-gun? Surely
there must be some dark secret here, some skeleton in our
family closet!

The truth is that we have seen in Russia a gigantic strike,
an I. W. W. strike, if you please; and it has been successful.
The workers have seized the factories, and now we call for
the militia to drive them out. The very existence of capitalism
depends upon their being driven out; as the phrase is, they
must "be made an example of." And so the capitalist press is
called in, our great lying-machine is given the biggest job in its
history. The Associated Press does for Russia precisely what
Charles Edward Russell showed it doing for Calumet, what I
showed it doing for Colorado. All our newspapers, big and
little, do what they are accustomed to do whenever there is a
strike in America — ^telling everything evil about the strikers
and nothing good about them, clamoring for violence against
them, justifying every crime committed against them in the
name of "law and order,"
, Recently the Soviets, pressed by starvation, have bowed so

392 The Brass Check

far to the will of world-capitalism as to agree to pay interest
on the Tsar's debts; they have offered to pledge some of the
vast natural resources of Russia to pay for the machinery and
supplies they must have. So Allied diplomacy hesitates and
falters; dare the diplomats risk the terrors of Bolshevist
propaganda, that mysterious black magic? Dare they allow
the world to see a prospering social revolution, a government
of the workers, by the workers, for the workers, which does
not perish from the earth?

They decided upon a conference with the Bolsheviki, on a
remote island in Turkish waters. Our newspapers printed the
fact that the invitation had been extended to the Bolsheviki:
but they did not print the Bolshevik acceptance. They did not
print the text of the Russian foreign minister's appeal to the
French Socialist, Longuet, as to the meaning of the Allied
proposals. They did not print the fact that the conference was
abandoned because William Allen White, American delegate
and man of honor, insisted upon full publicity.

President Wilson sent a confidential mission to P.ussia,
composed of William C. Bullitt and Lincoln Steffens. They
came back and reported that there was order in Russia ; that
the Russian people were satisfied with the Soviet regime ; that
the "nationalization of women" in Russia was an absurd yarn ;
that the cause of the starvation and misery in Russia was the
allied blockade ; and that Lenin wanted peace, and was willing
to do almost anything to get peace. President Wilson, for
reasons presumably known to him, turned down the advice of
this commission. Steffens made a public statement as to his
position, which was reported in the "London Daily Herald,"
but in no American newspaper or magazine. Bullitt resigned
from the Peace Commission, and addressed to President
Wilson a brief and dignified letter, explaining his reasons:
which letter was published in the "New York Nation," but in
no capitalist newspaper in America, so far as I could find out.

Then Bullitt was summoned before the Senate committee,
and the Associated Press sent out a brief and inadequate
report of his testimony. Next day he submitted the confiden-
tial report about Russia which he had delivered to President
Wilson. This was the most important information about
Russia yet available to the American people; and the "Los
Angeles Times," from which I get my first news of the world,
gave not a line of this report! More than that, in order to

The Case of Russia 393

avoid having to mention the report, the "Times" cut out that
day every word of its news about the struggle over the peace
treaty in the Senate ! Instead, it gave two columns, of which
I quote the headlines :

ROOSEVELT SCORES REDS

"Smash 'Em !" Cries Teddy, Jr., in Talks Telling of Perils in

Radicalism

That was on Sunday morning. On Monday morning
again, the "Times" had not a word about Bullitt, and not a
word about the agitation over the peace treaty in Washington,
the most important news of the day ; the reason being simply
that Washington was talking about the Bullitt report, and
about nothing else ! But on Tuesday, the British government
issued a denial of some of Bullitt's statements — one of those
evasive denials whereby the gigantic trading corporation tells
lies without quite telling them ; so once more the "Los Angeles
Times" was willing to mention William C. Bullitt!

I call up the "Los Angeles Examiner," to ask if the Asso-
ciated Press handled the Bullitt report. The "Los Angeles
Examiner," you understand, gets the Associated Press service
— is one of the "forty-one vote" newspapers. Both the city
editor and the telegraph editor assure me that the Associated
Press did not send the "Examiner" a word of it — ^the most
important news about Russia yet made available to the
American people ! Says the "Nation" :

No newspaper has printed Mr. Bullitt's testimony in full or even
in generous part; there were only three press representatives present
when he testified, and he has had the invariable experience of having
his testimony misquoted and altered, and interviews attributed to him
which he never gave.

The Social Revolution came in Hungary. It came in an
orderly and sensible way, without terror, without bloodshed;
and how was it treated by Capitalist Journalism? It was
treated just as the Russian Soviets had been treated — as an
outcast and outlaw. All the power of World Capitalism
was turned against the Hungarian Communist government.
Poland, Roumania, the Ukraine, all made war upon it, with
French officers and British tanks and American money; and
at the same time the great lying-machine was put to work.
The news agencies brought the report that Bela Kun had fled
to the Argentine ; and two days later that he was about to be

394 The Bbass Check

overthrown in Budapesth! All the power of American Jour-
nalism was set to keeping the workers from realizing that a
nation of fifteen or twenty million people had overthrown the
profit system, and was making a success of the Co-operative
Commonwealth.

I have before me some letters from a correspondent in
Budapesth, representing one of the most influential and sup-
posed-to-be-respectable of the great New York- newspapers.
This correspondent explains that she sends her articles with
the instructions that they shall be published as written or not
at all — ^and they are not published. "One of my confreres here
had an article twisted and turned about so badly that it meant
exactly the opposite of what he knew and wrote to be true."
And there is a group of correspondents in Budapesth, all
having the same experiences, it appears :

Their econornic sentences are cut out of articles and their radical
articles are paid for but never printed. There isn't a day passes that
we don't have an indignation meeting. One man wrote a long article
for one of the prominent magazines two months ago alluding to the
new order. He received a fat check with the letter announcing that
the article could not be used; they wished him to write more moder-
ately. Since my trip to Hungary and my conviction that Budapesth is
the only honest place in Europe outside Russia, I am not any longer
willing to write "moderately."

Only once before in modem history was there a crime like
this — when the kings and emperors of Europe went to war to
wipe out the French revolution, which their hired propa-
gandists described in precisely the same terms as we now see
applied to the Bolsheviki. Then it was political revolution,
now it is social revolution ; but the program is the same — the
earth is to be soaked with the blood of revolutionists, their
new ideal is to be corrupted in the military campaign necessary
to its defense, and the world is to be made safe for another
Holy Alliance — ^this time of the profit-system, of Industrial
Exploitation. It is for the people, who pay for all privilege
and maintain all parasites, to decide whether history shaH
repeat itself to the full ; whether the Holy Alliance of World
Capitalism is to crush for another century the hopes of the
working masses of the world.

CHAPTER LXI
"BOLSHEVISM" IN AMERICA

And what of those American radicals who have ventured
to protest against this policy, and to expose this campaign of
falsification? Here again it is only a question of how much
space one is willing to give to anecdotes.

My friend Rose Pastor Stokes is a pacifist, under sentence
of ten years in jail for pacifist activities ; again and again the
New York newspapers report her as calling for a bloody revo-
lution in America, and refuse to publish her protest that this
is false. You may not like pacifists; I myself admit that
during the war I found some of them extremely trying to my
patience. But do you believe that the proper way to treat them
is to lie about them ? Listen to the experiences of Mrs. Stokes
on a lecture trip in the Middle West. The "Kansas City Star,"
a one-time "liberal" paper, sent a special writer to interview
her on the laundry-workers' strike then in progress ; but find-
ing that this interview put her in a good light, they suppressed
it, and sent another reporter to write up her address to the
"Women's Dining Club." Says Mrs. Stokes:

The "Star" so garbled and twisted ray speech that it was actually
unrecognizable. For example, one of the things I was quoted as having
said v/as that the Red Cross was a war camouflage. It so happened
that I did not mention the Red Cross during the entire speech.

Then she went to speak in Springfield, Missouri, and the
"Star" had a lurid account of how she had been arrested in
Springfield, and admitted to bail, and has stolen out of the city
at day-break, forfeiting the hundred-dollar bond of a Socialist
comrade. Says Mrs. Stokes:

Except for the arrest, the story was a fabrication. I had left
Springfield at a respectable hour, wholly cleared; and no bond was
forfeited.

She came back to Kansas City, and a "Star" reporter was
sent to interview her; she asked him to deny this Springfield
story, and he turned in a denial, but not a word of it was pub-
lished. As a direct result of this newspaper misrepresentation,

395

396 The Beass Check

Mrs. Stokes was arrested by the Federal authorities and sen-
tenced to ten years in jail. She tells me how this trial and
sentence were reported, and points out the obvious motive of
the falsifications:

Anything to frighten people away from Socialist meetings ! If you
want to see this motive running through the capitalist press of the
entire country as a single thread, come and read the hundreds of
editorials on my ten-year sentence. Every state and every important
industrial community is represented. The wording is almost as if one
man, let alone one spirit, had dictated them all.

And here is Judson King, writing to members of Congress :

For your information permit me to state that at the meeting at
Poll's Theatre Sunday afternoon at which I presided there was no
advocacy of anarchy or violence, no attack upon the American form
of government, and no propaganda that Bolshevism be adopted in our
country. The well-nigh unanimous sentiment of audience and speakers
was that American troops be withdrawn and Russia be permitted to
settle her own fate in her own way.

The article in Monday's "Washington Post" headed, "Urge Red
America," is an absurd perversion of the truth and a gross violation of
journalistic ethics. Discussions in Congress regarding this meeting,
based apparently upon this article, have proceeded under a misappre-
hension of facts. Whether any attempt was made to verify the truth
of the article I do not know. No inquiry was made of me.

Mr. King goes on to state that the address of Albert Rhys
Williams at this meeting was read from a typewritten text,
and a carbon copy handed by him to a reporter of the "Wash-
ington Post." The falsification of Williams' remarks by the
"Post" was therefore deliberate.

At this same time Max Eastman was touring the country,
addressing enormous meetings. The meeting in Los Angeles
was reported by the "Examiner" as follows :

RADICAL'S TALK BRINGS POLICE

Max Eastman Stops Address When Disgusted Auditors Leave and
Officers Arrive

Cutting his lecture short, when many of his auditors left Trinity
Auditorium in disgusted anger, probably saved Max Eastman, editor
of a radical Socialist publication, from a police intervention last night.

Before the speaker had entered far upon his subject, "Hands Off
Russia," his remarks were deemed so unpatriotic and his unwarranted
attack upon the administration so vitriolic that scores left the
auditorium and telephoned the Federal authorities and the police,
denouncing Eastman and demanding his arrest.

Apparently scenting trouble, Eastman effected a sudden diminu-

"Bolshevism" in America 397

endo, his anti-climax coming when he left the rostrum to conduct a
canvassing of his audience for prospective subscribers to his magazine
and purchasers of stock in same. When the police officers appeared on
the scene, nothing of treasonable nor anarchistic nature was heard.

Eastman's address contained many statements so preposterous that
even the most gullible refused to believe them. He demanded that
Eugene Debs, Thomas J. Mooney and all I. W. W.'s in jail should be
freed and advised his hearers to emulate the Russian Bolsheviks and
rise in revolution.

Only a scant audience heard the address.

As it happens, I do not have to ask the reader to take
either my word or Eastman's about this meeting. Here is
part of a letter written to Max Ihmsen, managing editor of
the "Los Angeles Examiner," by Rob Wagner, artist and
author of "Film Folk."

Mar. 2, 1919.
Dear Max Ihmsen:

The other night Mrs. Wagner, Charlie Chaplin and I, seeking
light on darkest Russia, went to hear Max Eastman's lecture. During
what we thought was a very thoughtful and unimpassioned address, he
made the statement that the press of the country was in a deliberate
conspiracy to withhold or color all news from that country.

We all felt that he was unfair in including all the papers with
those notorious offenders, such as the "Times," from which one could
expect nothing else. But the next morning we read an account of the
lecture in the "Examiner" that was false from the headline to the
final sentence, which said : "Only a scant audience heard the address."

The lecture was not broken up by the police; in fact if there
were any police present no one even saw them. The chairman
announced that Mr. Eastman would speak on Russia; then Mr.
McBride would tell them about their magazine; and then at the end
Mr. Eastman would answer questions. The program was finished
exactly that way, without the slightest interruption, and to the very
sympathetic applause of some twenty-five hundred auditors.

Nor did Mr. Eastman insult the President. In urging the with-
drawal of American troops from Russia — a i)olicy vigorously urged
by Hearst papers — ^he simply stated that there was a striking incon-
sistency between President Wilson's words and his deeds; for when
the President addressed his memorandum on the Marmora conference
he assured the delegates that America had absolutely no interest in the
internal affairs of Russia, and would not take sides; while at that
moment he was commander-in-chief of an army that was at war with
the Russians on two fronts.

Rob Wagner went on to explain that he wrote this protest
"in the kindliest spirit"; and Mr. Ihmsen in reply expressed
his regret, and promised to investigate the matter. You
remember how it was with the express companies in the old

398 The Beass Check

days; they would lose your package, and promise to "investi-
gate" — which meant that they filed your complaint away with
five hundred thousand others of the same sort. Six months
later I am preparing the manuscript of this book, and I write
to Mr. Ihmsen that I desire to verify every charge I bring
against American Journalism. Will he inform me if he has
ever published a correction of this falsehood? Mr. Ihmsen
replies that he has unfortunately overlooked the matter, but
will be glad to publish a correction now. He does — ^the very
next day ! I wonder if this will seem as funny to the reader
as it seems to me. Mr. Ihmsen brands Max Eastman in the
public mind as a coward and a blatherskite, and for six
months he lets that brand remain, though he knows it is unde-
served. But then suddenly he learns that he himself is to be
branded as a character-assassin; and so he makes a quick
jump. But even so, he cannot be really fair. He gave the
original story half a column ; he gives the correction two inches
of space, in a corner so remote that I, who read the "Exam-
iner" every morning, do not see it until he sends me a marked
copy!

A month or two after Max Eastman's lecture came Louise
Bryant, freshly returned from Russia, and gave one of the
most interesting talks I have ever heard; and next morning
not a line in any Los Angeles newspaper ! The following eve-
ning she spoke again, and I came upon the platform, and called
the attention of the audience to this case of newspaper sup-
pression, and asked for funds to get the truth to the people
of Los Angeles. Before I had finished speaking, money began
to shower upon the stage, and the total collection amounted to
twelve hundred and forty dollars. I interviewed the assistant
managing editor of the "Los Angeles Examiner," and he
agreed to publish a report of the meeting, and allowed me to
dictate a column to a reporter — of which he published two
inches ! A committee called upon the managing editor of the
"Los Angeles Times," and this gentleman not only refused to
publish a line, but refused to accept a paid advertisement
giving the news ; incidentally he flew into a rage and insulted
the ladies of the committee. The money collected at the meet-
ing was expended upon an edition of fifty thousand copies of a
local radical paper, the "New Justice," containing an account
of the whole affair; and when an attempt was made to dis-
tribute these papers among the ship-yard workers in the har-

"Bolshevism" in America 399

bor, the distributors were arrested, and the judge declared
that he wished he could get the editors of the paper.

In connection with this meeting, there was a humorous
incident which ought to be mentioned. Among the statements
made by Miss Bryant was that the Bolsheviki had taken
Odessa because the French troops had refused to fight them ;
several companies had gone over to the enemy. This state-
ment was published in the "New Justice," and was among
those which the Los Angeles newspapers refused to admit to
their columns. Louise Bryant had travelled all over the
country making the statement, and almost everywhere the
capitalist press refused to print it. But two months later came
an Associated Press despatch from Paris ; the Odessa incident
had become the subject of interpellations in the French par-
liament — so at last the news was out that French troops had
mutinied when ordered to fight the Bolsheviki !

Now comest the joke of the matter. To the Associated
Press despatch, the "New York Times" added the following
comment :

The account of the mutiny of the seamen on the French Black
Sea Fleet, given by M. Goude in the .French Chamber, rationally
explains far the first time the extraordinary events which took place at
Odessa on April 8, the day the city was evacuated by the Allies and
by all the population who could get away.

Don't you think those words, "for the first time," are
funny? Almost as funny as the story of "Tom Muni" from
Petrograd !

And then President Wilson comes to Los Angeles, and
there is held in the largest music auditorium in the city a mass
meeting of two thousand citizens, which unanimously submits
to the President a request for amnesty for political prisoners.
The "Los Angeles Times" gave this meeting not one word.
I am invited to address the City Club of Los Angeles, and I
tell them of this failure of the "Times" to report the news.
Whereupon the "Times" starts a campaign to have me put in
jail! I quote its first editorial; they have followed it up,
every other day for a couple of weeks — ^they are quite deter-
mined that I shall go to jail !

Get the I. W. W. Seditionists ! And lock them up. Tight! Right!
But why let Upton Sinclair roam at large ? He spits more poison than
the cheap skate. It is villainy to promote anarchy in these ticklish
times. Blood will be on the heads of some of the civic club managers.

400 The Bbass Check

male and female. It is a crime for them to invite disloyal speakers
to spout for them; just for amusement. The City Oub and some of
the women's clubs have boosted the Red cause. Bolshevism is no toy
to play with, ladies and gentlemen. An "open fonim" should not be
open to mobocracy and treason.

As I have said, I know several of the men and women
who help to edit the newspaper in which the above murderous
raving is published. These men and women will read this
book, and I now request the general public to step outside for
a few moments, while I address these editors privately. I
speak, not in my own voice, but in that of an old-time jour-
nalist, venerated in his day, John Swinton, editor of the "New
York Tribune." He is answering, at a banquet of his fellow-
editors, the toast : "An Independent Press" :

There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless
it is in the country towns.

You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to
writes his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that
it would never appear in print.

I am paid one hundred and fifty dollars a week for keeping ray
honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with — others of you
are paid similar salaries for similar things — and any of you who
would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on
the streets looking for another job.

The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth,
to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon,
and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread.

You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting
an "Independent Press."

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We
are the juraping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents,
our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We
are intellectual prostitutes.

PART III

THE REMEDY

CHAPTER LXII .

CUTTING THE TIGER'S CLAWS

Every day the chasm between the classes in America grows
wider ; every day the class struggle grows more intense. Both
sides become more conscious, more determined — and so the
dishonesty of American Journalism becomes more deliberate,
more systematic. And what is to be done ? It must be evident
to any sensible man that the conditions portrayed in this book
are intolerable. Mankind will not consent to be lied to
indefinitely.

William Marion Reedy discussed the question ten years
ago, and his solution was pamphleteering. We, must return to
the custom of the eighteenth century, printing and circulating
large numbers of leaflets, pamphlets and books. And for the
past ten years we have been doing this ; the Socialist party, for
example, is a machine for the circulating of pamphlets and
leaflets, and the holding of public meetings to counteract the
knaveries of the capitalist press. There are innumerable other
organizations which serve the same purpose: the "People's
Council," the "Civil Liberties Bureau," the "International
Workers' Defense League," the I. W. W. groups, "The Rand
School," the "People's College," the "Young People's Socialist
League," the "Intercollegiate Socialist Society." But, obvi-
ously, this can only be a temporary solution. The workers of
the country are in the condition of a frontier , settlement
besieged by savage Indians. They defend themselves with such
weapons as they find at hand ; but sooner or later, it is evident,
they will organize a regular force, and invade the woods, and
be done with those Indians once for all.

Take the Moyer-Haywood case, the Mooney case, the Lud-
low massacre, the Bisbee deportations; and consider what
happens. For days, for weeks, perhaps for years, the Asso-
ciated Press and its thousand newspapers prepare a carefully
constructed set of falsehoods, and twenty or thirty million
copies per day of these falsehoods are sold to the public.
Whereupon men and women of conscience all over the country
are driven to protest. They call mass-meetings, they organize

403

404' The Brass Check

a new league and raise defense funds, print leaflets and
pamphlets and devise a system of house-to-house distribution,
call big strikes and parades of protest; by this prodigious
mass of effort they succeed in conveying some small portion
of the truth to some small portions of the population. Is it
not obvious that society cannot continue indefinitely to get its
news by this wasteful method ? One large section of the com-
munity organized to circulate lies, and another large section of
the community organized to refute the lies ! We might as well
send a million men out into the desert to dig holes, and then
send another million to fill up the holes. To say that William
Marion Reedy, after a study of our journalistic dishonesty,
could find ho better solution of the problem than pamphleteer-
ing, is merely to say that bourgeois thought is bankrupt.

The first remedy to which every good American takes
resort is the law. We pass fifty thousand new laws in America
every year, but still we cling to the faith that the next thousand
will "do the business." Let us have laws to punish the lying
of the press !

I, as a good American, have thought of laws that I would
like to see passed. For instance, a law providing that news-
papers shall not publish an interview with anyone until they
have submitted the interview and had it O.K.'d ; or unless they
have obtained written permission to quote the person without
such O.K.

Also, a law provid ia^ that when any newspaper has made

any false gtgtpm ^fTvTnf-prtiing ir i.. im1nMHini1^_.ainH 1ig<; JiaH its

attention calle3to^the falsity ol .thi.s statement, it shall publish
a cofrectibn ot the statement in the nextedit ion-e f - the pu blica-
tinnr-aT^^ H l 1Jj^PJ;^ tm►-T^1^ ^ T^fLw i th thu gnm p p rnmmence giva i
ttfjEEIalsfi-stateiHentr — '

For example, the press sends out a report that the Rev.
Washington Gladden is about to resign his pulpit. His mail
is full of letters from people all over the country, expressing
regret. Says Dr. Gladden:

The trouble with such a report is that you can never get it cor-
rected. I have done my best to get such correction, but in this I have
signally failed. Anything which discredits a man is "good stuff,"
which most newspapers are ready to print, provided it is not actionable ;
any correction which is. made of such a report is not so apt to find a
place on the wires, and is pretty* sure to be blue-pencilled by the
telegraph editors.

Cutting the Tigek^s Claws 405

It happens, while I am preparing this book for the printer,
that I visit a friend, and mention what I am doing; he says:
"There was one newspaper story^ which almost caused me to
despise you. I wonder how much truth there was in it." He
explains that he was in Chicago in the early days of the war,
attending a conference of the People's Council, and in a
Chicago newspaper he read that I had denounced Emma Gold-
man to the government, and had turned over some of her
private letters to the government.

I tell my friend what happened. An insane man had threat-
ened my life, and I had applied to the Los Angeles police
department for permission to carry a revolver. They promised
to keep secret my application, but within half an hour there
were two newspaper reporters after me. I refused to talk
about the matter ; so, as usual, they made up a story. It hap-
pened that I had given to the chief of detectives what informa-
tion I had as to the insane man's past conduct ; among other
things, that he had caused a disturbance at a meeting of Emma
Goldman's. That was the way her name came in, and the
only way. I barely know Emma Goldman, having met her
twice at public meetings ; I knew nothing whatever about her
activities at this time, and had no letters from her in my pos-
session. I now have one, for immediately I wrote to her to
say that the published story was false, and she replied that I
need not have worried; she had known it was false.

Now, I sent a denial of that story to every newspaper in
Los Angeles, and also to the Associated Press ; but my denial
went into the waste-basket. And why? At this time the
capitalist press was engaged in hounding Emma Goldman to
prison ; the lie was useful to the bounders, so it stood, in spite
of all my protests.

Obviously enough, here is a gross injustice. Common
sense dictates a law that any newspaper which_p rints a false
statem«it_shalLbe rpguirpH t n givpTHcpml prominence to a cor-
re ction. T he law should provide that upon publication of any
false report, and failure to correct it immediately upon receipt
of notice, the injured party should have the right to collect a
fixed sum from the newspaper — five or ten thousand dollars at
least. At present, you understand, the sum has to be fixed by
the jury, and the damages have to be proven. If the "Los
Angeles Times" calls Upton Sinclair an "Anarchist writer," if
the "Chicago Tribune" calls Henry Ford an "Anarchist," it is

406 The Brass Check

up to the plaintiffs to prove just how and to what extent they
have been damaged. The newspaper has the right to question
their character and reputation, to examine them about every
detail of their lives and opinions. Was Upton Sinclair justified
in divorcing his wife? Does Henry Ford know how to read?
If not, then it is all right to call them "Anarchists."

Also there is the problem of the Associated Press, the most
powerful and most sinister monopoly in America. Certainly
there will be no freedom in America, neither journalistic
freedom nor political freedom nor industrial freedom, until the
monopoly of the Associated Press is broken; until the dis-
tributing of the news to American newspapers is declared a
public utility, under public control; until anyone who wishes
to publish a newspaper, in any American city or town may
receive the Associated Press service without any formality
whatever, save the filing of an application and the payment of
a fee to cover the cost of the service. Proceedings to establish
this principle were begun a year ago by Hearst before the
Federal Trade Commission. Hearst had been barred from
getting the "A. P." franchise in certain cities, and I venture to
guess that his purpose was to frighten his enemies into letting
him have what he wanted. At any rate, he found himself sud-
denly able to buy the franchises, so he dropped his proceed-
ings against the "A. P." The attorney in this case was Samuel
Untermyer, who writes me about the issue as follows :

' If the prevailing opinion is right, the monopoly of the Associated
Press over the news of the world is complete. Unless the courts will
hold, as I think they will, when the question comes before them, that
news is a public utility; that the Associated Press is engaged in inter-
state commerce, using the cables, telegraph lines and telephones and
that it is, therefore, bound to furnish its service on equal terms to all
who choose to pay for it. If that is not the law, it should be the law,
and can readily be made the law by Federal legislation. Until this is
done, the monopoly of the Associated Press will continue intolerable;
I have fought it for years and thus far in vain, but I shall con-
tinue to fight until it is broken. The little clique that controls the
Associated Press is in turn under the complete domination of a few of
the most narrow-minded and reactionary of the great capitalists of the
country. If our Government fails to stand the strain of these terrible
times and if revolution and blood-shed follow — which God forbid! —
the responsibility will rest at the doors of men like Gary and law-
breakers like the U. S. Steel Company who lack all vision and sense
of justice.

Also there should be a law forbidding any newspaper to

Cutting the Tiger's Claws 4=07

faket degraph or cable dispatches . At present, this is a univer-
"sal custom in newspaper offices ; the most respectable papers
do it continually. They clip an item from some other news-
paper, re-write it, and put it under a "telegraphic headline."
They will take the contents of some letter that comes to the
office, and write it up under a "London date-line." They will
write their own political propaganda, and represent it as hav-
ing come by telegraph from a special correspondent in Wash-
ington or New York. In "Harper's Weekly" for October 9,
1915, there was published an article, "At the Front with Willie
Hearst." Mr. Hearst's "Universal News Bureau" was shown
to be selling news all over the country, purporting to come
from "more than eighty correspondents, many of them of
world-wide fame." Every day, if you read this "Universal
Service," you became familiar with the names of Hearst cor-
respondents in London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Petro-
grad. All these correspondents were imaginary persons; all
this news was written in the Hearst offices in New York,
being a re-hash for American afternoon papers of the news
of the London morning papers. This is obvious fraud, and
the law should bar it, precisely as it bars misbranded maple
syrup and olive oil and strawberry jam.

Such laws would help ; and I could suggest others that
would help; nevertheless, the urging of such laws is not the
purpose of this book. It is a problem of cutting the claws of
a tiger. The first thing you have to do is to catch your tiger ;
and when I undertake the hard and dangerous job of invading
a jungle and catching a tiger and chaining him down, am I
going to be content with cutting ofif the sharpest points of
the beast's claws, and maybe pulling one or two of his teeth?
I am not !

CHAPTER LXIII

THE MENTAL MUNITION-FACTORY

A solution that comes at once to mind i s sta te-owned or
mi ^icipal- owned n ewspaper s: TIiinFl;he ortEodox iiocialist
solution, and is also being advocated by William Jennings
Bryan. Fortunately, we do not have to take his theories, or
anyone's theories; we have facts — ^the experience of Los
Angeles with its public paper, the "Municipal News," which
was an entire success. I inquire of the editor of the paper,
Frank E. Wolfe, and he writes :

The "Municipal News"?_ There's a rich story buried there. It
was established by an initiative ordinance, and had an ample appro-
priation. It was launched in the stream with engines going full steam
ahead. Its success was instantaneous. Free distribution; immense
circulation; choked with high-class, high-rate advertising; well edited,
and it was clean and immensely popular.

Otis said: "Every dollar that damned socialistic thing gets is a
dollar out of the 'Times' till." Every publisher in the city re-echoed,
and the fight was on. The chief thing that rankled, however, was the
outgrowth of a clause in the ordinance which gave to each political
party polling a three per cent vote a column in each issue for what-
soever purpose it might be used. The Socialist Labor Party nosed out
the Prohibitionists by a fluke. The Socialists had a big margin in the
preceding elections, so the Reds had two columns, and they were quick
to seize the opportunity for propaganda. The Goo-goos, who had
always stoutly denied they were a political party, came forward and
claimed space, and the merry war was on. Those two columns for
Socialist propaganda were the real cause f or_ the daily onslaught of
' the painted ladies of Broadway (newspaper district of Los Angeles).
There were three morning and three evening papers. Six times a day
they whined, barked, yelped and snapped at the heels of the "Municipal
News." Never were more lies poured out from the mouths of these
mothers of falsehood. The little, weakly whelps of the pornographic
press took up the hue and cry, and Blanche, Sweetheart and Tray
were on the trail. Advertisers were cajoled, browbeaten and black-
mailed, until nearly all left the paper. The "News" was manned by a
picked staff of the best newspaper men on the coast. It was clean,
well edited, and gave both sides to all controversies — using the parallel
column system. It covered the news of the municipality better than
any paper had ever covered it. It was weak and ineffective editorially,
for the policy was to print a newspaper. We did not indulge in a
clothes-line quarrel — did not fight back.

408

The Mental Munition-Factoey 409

The "News" died under the axe one year from its birth. They
used the initiative to kill it. The rabble rallied to the cry, and we
foresaw the end.

The paper had attracted attention all over the English-r-eading^
world. Everywhere I have gone I have been asked about it, by people
who never dreamed I had been an editor of the paper. Its death was
a triumph for reaction, but its effect will not die. Some day the idea
will prevail. Then I might want to go back into the "game."

ri'ty-nTxrnpH r|pwgpa pers are part of the solution, but not
the whole part As a Socialist, i advocate public ownership
of the instruments and means of production ; but I do not rely
entirely upon that method where intellectual matters are con-
cerned. I would have the state make all the steel and coal and
oil, the shoes and matches and sugar; I would have it do the
distributing of newspapers, and perhaps even the printing ; but
for the editing of the newspapers I cast about for a method of
control that allows free play to the development of initiative ^
and the expression of personality.

In a free society the solution will be simple ; there will be
many groups and associations, publishing their own papers,
and if you do not like the papers which these groups give you,
you can form a group of your own. Being in receipt of the
full product of your labor, you will have plenty of money, and
will be surrounded by other free and independent individuals,
also receiving the full product of their labor, and accustomed
to combining for the expression of their ideas. The difference
is that today the world's resources are in the hands of a class,
and this class has a monopoly of self-expression. The problem
of transferring such power to the people must be studied as the
whole social problem, and not merely as the problem of the
press.

Fortunately there are parts of America in which the people
have kept at least a part of their economic independence, and
have gone ahead to solve the problem of the "kept" press in
true American fashion — ^that is, by organizing and starting
honest newspapers for themselves. The editor of the "Non-
partisan Leader," Oliver S. Morris, has kindly written for me
an account of the experiences of the Nonpartisan League,
which I summarize as follows :

The League commenced organization work early in 1915
in North Dakota. By the summer of the next year it had
forty thousand members, yet no newspaper in the state had

410 The Brass Check

given, even as news, a fair account of the League's purposes.
Every daily paper in the state was filled with "gross misinfor-
mation and absurd lies." So the League started a little weekly
paper of its own. With this single weekly, against the entire
daily press of the state, it swept the primaries in June, 1916.

Then the League decided to have a daily paper. The
"Courier-News" of Fargo had been for sale, but the owners
would not sell to the League. The League went ahead to
start a new paper, actually buying machinery and taking sub-
scriptions; then the "Courier-News" decided to sell, and its
circulation under League ownership now exceeds the total
population of Fargo.

The League at present has weekly papers in seven states,
with a total circulation of two hundred thousand, and another
weekly, the "Non-partisan Leader," published in St. Paul,
with a circulation of two hundred and fifty thousand. It is
starting co-operative country weekly papers, supervising their
editorial policy and furnishing them news and editorial service ;
over one hundred of these weekly papers are already going.
There is another League daily in Grand Forks, North Dakota,
and one at Nampa, Idaho. Finally, the League is going ahead
on its biggest venture, the establishment of a daily in Min-
neapolis. This paper is to be capitalized at a million dollars,
and the stock is being sold to farmer and labor organizations
throughout the state. Says Mr. Morris : "Many wealthy pro-
fessional and business men, disgusted with the controlled press,
have purchased stock, and are warm boosters for the League
publications." Also he says :

' One of the chief results of the establishment of a League press is
a different attitude on the part of many existing papers. With com^
petition in the field, many publishers who have hitherto been biased
and unfair have been forced to change their tactics. Few of these
papers have gone over to the League side of political and economic
questions, but they have been forced at least to print fair news reports
on both sides of the question in their news columns, reserving their
opposition to the movement for their editorial columns. That, of
course, is fair enough. The menace of the controlled press in America
is due to the fact that as a rule this press does not confine its argu-
ments and opposition to the editorial columns, but uses the news
columns for propaganda, and, failing to print the news, printing only
a part of it, distorting it or actually lying, sways opinion through the
news columns.

Such is the procedure in places where Americans are free.

The Mental Munition-Factoey 411

But what about our crowded cities, with their slum popula-
tions, speaking forty different languages, illiterate, unorganized,
and dumb ? Even in these cities there have been efforts made
to start newspapers in the interest of the people. I know few
more heroic stories than the twenty-year struggle to establish
and maintain the "New York Call." It began as a weekly,
"The Worker." Even that took endless campaigns of begging,
and night labor of devoted men and women who earned their
livings by day-time labor under the cruel capitalist grind. At
last they managed to raise funds to start a daily, and then for
ten years it was an endless struggle with debt and starvation.
It was a lucky week when the "New York Call" had money
enough to pay its printing force; the reporters and editors
would sometimes have to wait for months. A good part of
the space in the paper had to be devoted to ingenious begging.

The same attempt was made in Chicago, and there bad
management and factional quarrels brought a disastrous
failure. At the time of writing, there are Socialist dailies in
Butte, in Seattle, and in Milwaukee, also a few foreign-
language Socialist dailies. There are numerous weeklies and
monthlies ; but these, of course, do not take the place of news-
papers, they are merely a way of pamphleteering. The people
read falsehoods all week or all month, and then at last they
get what portion of the truth the "Appeal to Reason" or the
"Nation" or the "Liberator" or "Pearson's" can find room for.
In the meantime the average newspaper reader has had his
whole psychology made of lies, so that he cannot believe the
truth when he sees it.

There are a few millionaires in America who have liberal
tendencies. They have been willing to finance reform cam-
paigns, and in great emergencies to give the facts to the people ;
they have been willing now and then to back radical magazines,
and even to publish them. But — I state the fact, without
trying to explain it — ^there has not yet appeared in America a
millionaire willing to found and maintain a fighting daily paper
for the abolition of exploitation. I have myself put the prop-
osition before several rich men. I have even known of cases
where promises were made, and plans drawn up. My friend
Gaylord Wilshire intended to do it with the proceeds of his
gold-mine, but the gold-mine has taken long to develop. I had
hopes that Henry Ford would do it, when I read of his pur-
chase of the "Dearborn Independent." I urged the matter

412 The Brass Check

upon him with all the eloquence I could muster ; he said he
meant to do it, but I have my fears. The trouble is his
ignorance; he really does not know about the world in which
he finds himself, and so far the intellectual value of the
"Dearborn Independent" has been close to zero.

So our slum proletariat is left to feed upon the garbage of
yellow journalism. Year by year the cost of living increases,
and wages, if they move at all, move laggingly, and after
desperate and embittered strife. In the midst of this strife the
proletariat learns its lessons ; it learns to know the clubs of
policemen and the bayonets and machine-guns of soldiers; it
learns to know capitalist politicians and capitalist judges ; also
it learns to know Capitalist Journalism ! Wherever in America
the workers organize and strike for a small portion of their
rights, they come out of the experience with a bitter and
abiding hatred of the press. I have shown you what hap-
pened in Colorado ; in West Virginia ; in Paterson, New Jersey ;
in Calumet, Michigan; in Bisbee, Arizona; in Seattle, Wash-
ington. I could show you the same thing happening in every
industrial center in America.

The workers have come to realize the part which the news-
papers play; they have come to know the newspapers as the
crux of the argument, the key to the treasure-chamber. A
modern newspaper, seen from the point of view of the
workers, is a gigantic munition-factory, in which the propertied
class manufactures mental bombs and gas-shells for the anni-
hilation of its enemies. And just as in war sometimes the
strategy is determined by the location of great munition-
factories and depots, so the class-struggle comes to center
about newspaper offices. In every great city of Europe where
the revolution took place, the first move of the rebels was to
seize these offices, and the first move of the reactionaries was
to get them back. We saw machine-guns mounted in the
windows of newspaper-offices, sharp-shooters firing from the
roofs, soldiers in the streets replying with shrapnel. It is
worth noting that wherever the revolutionists were able to take
and hold the newspapers, they maintained their revolution;
where the newspapers were retaken by the reactionaries, the
revolution failed.

In Petrograd the "Little Gazette," organ of the "Black
Hundreds," became the "Red Gazette," and has remained the
"Red Gazette." The official military organ, the "Army and

The Mental Munition-Factoey 413

Fleet," became the "Red Army and Fleet." The "Will of
Russia," organ of Protopopov, last premier of the Tsar,
became the "Pravda," which means "Truth." In Berlin, on
the other hand, the "Kreuz-Zeitung," organ of black magic
and reaction, became for a few days "Die Rothe Fahne," the
"Red Flag"; but, alas, it went back to the "Kreuz-Zeitung"
again !

Will it come this way in America? Shall we see mobs
storming the offices of the "New York Times" and "World,"
the "Chicago Tribune," the "Los Angeles Times"? It depends
entirely upon the extent to which these capitalist newspapers
continue to infuriate the workers, and to suppress working-
class propaganda with the help of subservient government
officials. I personally am not calling for violent revolution ; I
still hope for the survival of the American system of govern-
ment. But I point out to the owners and managers of our
great capitalist news-organs the peril in which they place them-
selves, by their system of organized lying about the radical
movement. It is not only the fury of resentment they awaken
in the hearts of class-conscious workingmen and women ; it is
the condition of unstable equilibrium which they set up in
society, by the mass of truth they suppress. Today every
class-conscious workingman carries about with him as his
leading thought, that if only he and his fellows could get pos-
session of the means of news-distribution, could take the
printing-offices and hold them for ten days, they could end
forever the power of Capitalism, they could make safe t^he
Co-operative Commonwealth in America.

I say ten days, and I do not speak loosely. Just imagine if
the newspapers of America were to print the truth for ten
days! The truth about poverty, and the causes of poverty;
the truth about corruption in politics and in all branches of
government, in Journalism, and throughout the business world ;
the truth about profiteering and exploitation, about the bank-
ing graft, the plundering of the railroads, the colossal gains of
the Beef Trust and the Steel Trust and the Oil Trust and
their hundreds of subsidiary organizations; the truth about
conditions in industry, the suppression of labor-revolts and
the corrupting of labor movements ; above all, the truth about
the possibilities of production by modern machinery, the fact
that, by abolishing production for profit and substituting pro-
duction for use, it would be possible to provide abundance for

414 The Bbass Check

all by two or three hours' work a day ! I say that if all this
legitimate truth could be placed before the American people
for ten successive days, instead of the mess of triviality,
scandal, crime and sensation, doctored news and political
dope, prejudiced editorials and sordid and vulgar advertise-
ments ' upon which the American people are now fed — I
say that the world would be transformed, and Industrial
Democracy would be safe. Most of our newspaper pro-
prietors know this as well as I do ; so, when they read of the
seizing of newspaper offices in Europe, they experience cold
chills, and one great newspaper in Chicago has already pur-
chased half a dozen machine-guns and stored them away in its
cellar !

For twenty years I have been a voice crying in the wilder-
ness of industrial America; pleading for kindness to our
laboring-classes, pleading for common honesty and truth-tell-
ing, so that we might choose our path wisely, and move by
peaceful steps into the new industrial order. I have seen my
pleas ignored and my influence destroyed, and now I see the
stubborn pride and insane avarice of our money-masters driv-
ing us straight to the precipice of revolution. What shall I do ?
What can I 'do — save to cry out one last warning in this last
fateful hour? The time is almost here — and ignorance, false-
hood, cruelty, greed and lust of power were never stronger in
the hearts of any ruling class in history than they are in those
who constitute the Invisible Government of America today.

CHAPTER LXIV
THE PROBLEM OF THE REPORTER

One important line of attack upon Capitalist Journalism
occurred to me some five years ago, after the Colorado coal-
strike. I have saved this story, because it points so clearly
the method I wish to advocate. You will find the story in
"Harper's Weekly" for July 25, 1914; "Hearst-Made War
News," by Isaac Russell.

You remember how Hearst "made" the war with Si>ain.
Sixteen years later, in 1914, Hearst was busy "making"
another war, this time with Mexico. President Wilson, trying
to avoid war, had arranged for arbitration of the difficulty
between Mexico and the United States by delegates from
Argentine, Brazil and Chile. This was the Niagara Confer-
ence, and to it the "New York American" sent an honest
reporter. It did this, not through oversight, but because
the usual run of Hearst reporters had found themselves unable
to get any information whatever. One Mexican delegate had
taken the card of a Hearst reporter, torn it to pieces, and
thrown the pieces into the reporter's face. The delegates for
the United States refused to talk to the Hearst representatives, ,
the other newspaper-men refused to have anything to do with
them. So the managing editor of the "New York American"
selected Mr. Roscoe Conklin Mitchell, a man known to be
honest.

Mr. Mitchell came to Niagara, and got the news — to the
effect that all was going well at the conference. He sent a
dispatch to that effect, and the "New York American" did
not publish this dispatch. Day by day Mr. Mitchell sent
dispatches, describing how all was going well at the conference ;
and the "American," which was determined that the Con-
ference should fail, doctored these dispatches and wrote in
false matter. Mr. Mitchell had to explain to the delegates
and to the other reporters how he was being treated by his
home office. On two occasions Mr. Mitchell forced the
"American" to send up another man to write the kind of
poisoned falsehoods it wanted; and on each occasion these

415

416 The Beass Check

men were forced to leave, because no one would have an)rthing
to do with them, they could get no information. Finally, in
the midst of Mr. Mitchell's dispatches, the "New York Ameri-
can" inserted a grand and wonderful "scoop": "President
Carranza's Confidential Message to the Mediators." Mr.
Mitchell had sent no such dispatch, and upon inquiry he
learned that the document was a fake; no such "confidential
message" had been received from President Carranza. So Mr.
Mitchell wired his resignation to the "New York American."

The managing editor of the "American" protested.
"Please be good soldier and good boy," he telegraphed. Again
he telegraphed: "Come home comfortably, be philosophical.
Good soldiers are patient, even if superior officers make mis-
takes. Be resigned without resigning." When the news of
Mitchell's resignation reached the other reporters, they formed
an impromptu committee and rushed in automobiles to his
hotel to congratulate him. The American delegates to the con-
vention held a reception, during which the head of the delega-
tion made to Mr. Mitchell a speech of congratulation. Sum-
ming up the story, Isaac Russell puts this question to you, the
reader: Will you leave it to the men on the firing line, the
reporters, to fight out alone the question of whether you are to
receive accurate information concerning what is going on in
the world ? Or will you help to find means whereby both you
and your agent, the reporter, may be less at the mercy of the
unscrupulous publisher, who finds that l)ring and misrepre-
sentation serve his personal ends?

Isaac Russell, you recall, was the reporter for the "New
York Times" who had stood by me through the struggle over
the Colorado coal-strike. This struggle was just over, and
both Russell and I were sick and sore. Russell was fighting
with his editors day by day — ^they objected to his having
written this "Hearst-made War News," by the way, and took
the first opportunity thereafter to get rid of him. Russell
had word of an impending break between Amos Pinchot and
Theodore Roosevelt, and wrote it up. Gifford Pinchot, brother
of Amos, made a furious denial, whereupon the "Times" fired
Russell. But very soon afterwards Amos Pinchot broke with
Theodore Roosevelt !

Russell and I talked over the problem of the reporter and
the truth. Must a reporter be a cringing wretch, or else a
man of honor in search of a job ? Might not a reporter be a

The Problem of the Repobtee 417

member of an honored profession, having its own standards, its
sense of duty to the public? Obviously, the first trouble is
that in his economic status the reporter is a sweated wage
slave. If reporting is to become a profession, the reporters
must organize, and have power to fix, not merely their wage-
scale, but also their ethical code. I wrote an article calling for
a "reporters' union," and Russell began to agitate among New
York newspaper-men for this idea, which has now spread all
over the country.

What would be the effect upon news-writing of a re-
porters' union ? What assurance have we that reporters would
be better than owners? Well, in the first place, reporters are
young men, and owners are nearly always old men ; so in the
newspaper-world you have what you have in the world of
finance, of diplomacy, of politics and government — a "league
of the old men," giving orders to the young men, holding the
young men down. The old men own most of the property, the
young men own little of the property ; so control by old men is
property control, while control by young men would be control
by human beings.

I have met some newspaper reporters who were drunken
scoundrels. I have met some who were as cruel and unscru-
pulous as the interests they served. But the majority of news-
paper reporters are decent men, who hate the work they do, and \
would gladly do better if it were possible. I feel sure that
very few of the falsehoods about Helicon Hall would have
been published if the reporters who accepted our hospitality
had been free to write what they really thought about us. I
know that throughout our "Broadway demonstration" a
majority of the reporters were on our side. They took us
into their confidence about what was going on in their news-
paper offices ; they went out of their way to give us counsel.
Again and again they came to my wife, to plead that our
mourning "stunt" was "petering-out," and could we not think
up some way to hold the attention of the public? Would not
my wife at least rescind her request that they omit descrip-
tions of that white military cape ? After the last assault upon
the street speakers in Tarrytown, it was a reporter who warned
my wife that the situation was getting out of hand ; the authori-
ties would not listen to reason, there was going to be violence,
and she had better persuade me to withdraw.

27

418 The Brass Check

I have before me a letter from C. E. S. Wood, poet and
lawyer :

You doubtless know more newspaper men than I do, but I know
a great many — fine fellows personally; themselves writhing in the
detestable position of moral bandits, the disgrace of which they feel
as keenly as any, and yet economic determinism keeps them there.
They are in a trap. They are behind the bars, and as the thief said to
Talleyrand, or some minister of France, "One must live." I know of
no other profession that deliberately trains its neophytes to lying and
dishonor, which makes it a part of the professional obligation to ruin
man or woman by deliberate lies; which never honestly confesses a
mistake, and never has the chivalry to praise an adversary.

And again, William Marion Reedy :

To one who has lived all his life in cities, to one who has spent
most of his days and nights with the men who write the great daily
papers of the cities, it is perfectly evident that ninety out of one
hundred editorial writers on the press today are men who are in
intellectual and sympathetic revolt against present-day conditions.
You will find the average editorial writer a Socialist, and as for the
reporter, he is most likely to be an Anarchist. The reason of this is
plain enougK The men who make the newspapers are behind the
scenes — they see the workings of the wires — they note the demagogy of
politicians, they are familiar with the ramifications by which the public
service corporations control the old parties down to the smallest
offices, and even at times finance reform movements, which always
stop at the election of some respectable figurehead or dummy, but
never proceed to any attack upon the fundamental evils of our social
and economic system. It is my firm belief that were it not for the
capitalists at the head of the great daily newspapers, if it were pos-
sible for the men who write the news and the editorials of all the
newspapers in the United States, to take absolute charge of their pub-
lications and print the news exactly as they see it, and write their
views exactly as they feel them, for a space of three days, there would
be such a revolution in the United States of America as would put
that of France to shame. The only possible reason why this might not
occur is that the editorial writers and . reporters actually believe in
nothing — ^not even in the various remedies, rational or wild-eyed,
which occasionally, in private, they proclaim.

And here is another letter, written by Ralph Bayes, for
many years city editor of the "Los Angeles Record," and now
laid up in a sanitarium with tuberculosis.

I wonder as you gallop gaily along the way, throwing rocks in
gypsy-like abandon at the starched and frilled little children of privi-
lege — I wonder whether you will gvve your readers just one glimpse
of the tragedies that are the lives of the men hired by the system to
do the work you condemn. It isn't merely that we journalists must
prostitute our own minds and bodies in answer to the call of that

The Problem of the Reporter 419

inexorable tyrant, our collective belly. Every man who toils and
sweats for a wage is perforce doing the same thing. The bitterness
of our portion is this precisely ; that we are hired poisQners, whose lot
it is to kill the things we love most. To kill them, not as bold buc-
caneers in a stand-up fight, but to slay them artfully, insidiously, with
a half-true head-line or a part suppression of fact. In my ten years
of experience on various sheets as reporter, editor and Associated
Press representative, I have come to know the masses with whom I
had to deal. Their intellects were the pawns with which I must learn
to play the editorial game. I knew for instance, sitting at my desk,
just how many extra papers I could sell with a scare-line on a police
scandal. I knew to how many men on the street the filthy details of
some married woman's shame would prove a lure to buy. And as I
watched the circulation rise or fall, day by day, like a huge beating
pulse, I became familiar, somewhat, with the mental processes of the
average human animal. It was my tragedy, as it is the tragedy of
the majority of my fellows, that this knowledge, acquired always at a
tremendous cost of our life's energies, must be used not for the uplift,
but for the further enslavement, the drugging of the minds of men.
How many times have I sat at my desk, and in apparently heartless
fashion, cut the big truth out of the stuff that honest reporters wrote.
Sometimes there were other moments in my life, as in the lives of
the rest of my kind, when there were opportunities for sly sabotage-
when we thought by the ridiculous speciousness of our alleged facts, to
make the pseudo-truths which we pretended to propound stand forth
in their gaunt shamelessness for the things they actually were. Do
you remember Harwood, of the "Los Angeles Times''? If . I were
only with you now, I could point out to you in that daily concatena-
tion of lies, a few truths about things, peering covertly through the
mass of corruption, and seeming almost to be holding their figurative
noses in disgust. How we used to chuckle when he would succeed in
passing a sly sentence — a word — over the sleepy night editor at the
desk ! Poor intellectual Pierrots that we were ! _ Literary Pantaloons !
But out of the tragedy of my own experience, and out of the
tragedies of the experiences of the fellows I have known, I can
glimpse a great light ahead. For I'm an optimist, you see. I was talk-
ing the other day to the editor of one of _ the sheets which poison
public opinion in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a thoroughly fine and
likable chap, but I had always known him for an ultra-conservative — a
kept man entirely. The conversation drifted to Russia, and to my
utter astonishment he quite frankly, but confidentially, told me that he
didn't believe a word of the dispatches put forth by the Associated
Press — the Associated Press which hitherto had been Almighty God to
him. I glanced at him curiously, and then: "You're not a radical?"
I said, dubiously. "I don't know what I am,'' he replied. "I've lost
my perspective and I haven't anchored to any economic philosophy as
yet, but sometimes my thoughts are so bitter that I'm afraid of them.
I've just seen a man sent to jail for twenty days," he continued. "He
had been in town but half an hour, and his only crime was that he
couldn't obtain work and that he had run out of money. God," he
said, "some day I may be that man. I feel his feelings now, and I

420 The Beass Check

must hide them or lose my job." Poor fellow, his wife is dying of
tuberculosis, and he is almost distracted with the burden of his
financial troubles.

It was just another journalistic tragedy I had seen, but joy burst
in upon me as I listened to him talk. "Things aren't so bad after all," I
thought, "for the press, at least, isn't any more rotten or venal than
the rest of the system." In the editorial rooms of the country there
are good fellows and true, sheer tired of the daily assassination in
which they participate. Their fine delusions are spent. Their faith in
the old is waning. And when the big day comes, I_ think you will find
the press full ripe — riper perhaps than most of our institutions — for the
change.

On page 149 I stated that the pubHsher of the "New York
Times" gave a dinner to his staff, and my friend, Isaac Rus-
sell, corrected me, saying: "WE REPORTERS PAID FOR
THAT DINNER." Now let me give you another glimpse into
a reporter's soul :

I can understand it now. We were trying to get together in an
association, but the big bosses always got in, and Mr. Ochs always
came TO OUR DINNER, and always made the principal speech, and
always dismissed the gathering after vaudeville stunts by "old vets."
I remember that at that dinner I PAID, but sat away at the foot of a
horseshoe table, and the BIG GUNS of the "Times" all sat around the
center of the horse-shoe, and the big guns thundered and sent us away
— me boiling, that we writers had to sit mute and dumb at our own
dinner, and could never talk over our affairs — the bosses rushed so to
every gathering we planned.

I wish you could print the menu card for that dinner — ^the illus-
tration on the cover. I kept it as the most humiliating example I ever

saw of the status of the news-writer The illustration showed

Adolph S. Ochs as a man with his coat off wielding a big sledge-
hammer. He was knocking one of those machines where you send 3ie
ball away up in the air, and get a cigar if the bell rings at the top of
the column. Well, a little figure stood behind the redoubtable pluto-
cratic owner of the "Times." This little figure was labeled "THE
STAFF."

"STAFP' WAS FLUNKEYING IT FOR OCHS— holding the
great man's hat and coat, if you will — while he hit the circulation ball
a wallop!

CHAPTER LXV

THE PRESS SET FREE

Some years ago Allan Benson told me of his troubles as an
honest journalist ; I asked him, to repeat them for this book,
and he answered :

I doubt if my experiences as a daily newspaper editor would serve
your purpose. When I was a daily editor I edited. I printed what I
pleased. If I could not do so, I resigned. I didn't resign with a bank
account to fall back upon — I resigned broke.

I am sorry that I struck my friend Benson in an uncom-
municative mood. It doesn't in the least interfere with my
thesis to learn that some editors resign; it is plain enough to
the dullest mind that it doesn't help the public when an honest
man resigns, and a rogue or a lickspittle takes his place.

I am not one of those narrow radicals who believe that the
pocket-nerve of the workers is the only nerve, or even the
principal nerve, by which they will be moved to action. I
ktiow that the conscience of newspaper mert is struggling all
the time. Now and then I come on a case of truth-telling in a
capitalist newspaper, which cannot be explained by any selfish,
competitive motive. What does it mean? If you could go
inside that office, you would find some man risking the bread
that goes into his children's mouths, the shoes that go onto
their feet, in order that the knavery of Capitalist Journalism
may be a little less knavish ; going to his boss and laying down
the law : "I won't stand for that. __ If that goes in, I go out."
As a rule, alas, he goes out — and this reduces the inclination of
others to fight for honesty in the news.

One purpose of this. book is to advocate a union of news-
paper workers, so that they may make their demands as an
organization, and not as helpless individuals. Events move
fast these days ; while I write, I learn that there is already a
"News- Writers' Union" in Boston, and one in New Haven;
there is one being formed in Omaha, one in Louisville, one in
Seattle, one in San Francisco. In Louisville the "Courier-
Journal" and "Times" served notice on their staff that joining
the union would automatically constitute resignation^ In San

431

433 The Beass Check

Francisco, I am told by an editor of that city, the movement
"was carried through swiftly and silently at the start, the
evening papers being one hundred per cent organized, the
morning papers about fifty per cent." Then the publishers got
wind of it, and held a secret meeting in the St. Francis Hotel.
"That fearless backer of organized labor and the rights of the
working classes, to wit: William Randolph Hearst, preferred
to carry out his great program 'of betterment without consult-
ing his handmaidens and bondmen." The "Chronicle," the
paper of "Mike" De Young, took the same stand; so —

Upon the morning after the meeting every man on both papers
who had signed the charter roll of the proposed association was told
to recant with bended knee, or to go forth and earn his bread with
a pick and shovel. Some did and some did not — all honor to the

latter It is certain that the publishers of the morning papers

will fight to the last ditch.

My informant goes on to tell about his own position.
You remember the immortal utterance of President Eliot of
Harvard, that the true "American hero" of our time is the
"scab." How does this true "American hero" feel about him-
self ? Listen :

And I? Well, old man, I somewhat shamefully admit that I am
at present guarding my bread and butter, and looking to the future
with one eye on the boss's and my own opportunities, and in my
heart damning the conditions that make me an undoubted renegade. I
am drawing a little better than forty per, am in the best of standing,

being now and with the possibility of being its head shortly, and

with certain advancement coming in both pay and rating. Now what
the deuce? Shall I tell Polly to support us and get in on the big
game, or shall I eat my bitter bread?. . . .

I do know this, that there is going to be no present big success
of the union movement, that whoever joins it too prominently is
going to fight the owners for the rest of his life, and that the union
can do me myself no good at all from any standpoint.

You will remember that in my story of the "Los Angeles
Times" I mentioned a young reporter. Bob Harwood, who
had told me of the "Times" knaveries. Harwood is now in
San Francisco, where you may have another glimpse of him.

Bob told 'em all to go to hell, and is now organizing actively.
There is an addition coming to the Harwood family shortly. Why
comment further?

And then, let us see what is happening on the other side
of the continent. In New Haven the "News- Writers' Union"

The Peess Set Feee 423

goes on strike, and while they are on strike, they publish a
paper of their own! In Boston the "News-Writers' Union"
declares a strike, and wins all demands. Incidentally they
learn — if they do not know it already — ^that the newspapers
of Boston do not publish the news ! They do not publish the
news about the News-Writers' strike; when the strike is
settled, on the basis of recognition of the union, not a single
Boston newspaper publishes the terms of the settlement!

In every union there is always a little group of radicals,
occupied with pointing out to the men the social significance
of their labor, the duty they owe to the working-class, and to
society as a whole. So before long we shall see the News-
Writers' Union of Boston taking up the task of forcing the
Boston newspapers to print the truth. We shall see the News-
Writers' Union taking up the question: Shall the "Boston
Evening Transcript" permit its news-columns to be edited by
the gas company, and by "Harvard Beer, 1,000 Pure"? We
shall see the union at least bringing these facts to public atten-
tion, so that the "Transcript" can no longer pose as a re-
spectable newspaper.

I quote one paragraph more from my San Francisco letter :

All three evening papers, I am told, are one hundred per cent
organized; a charter is pn the way from the I. T. U. and the move-
ment has the full backing — or is promised the full backing — of the
A. F. of L. and the local labor organizations. Just what that is
worth is yet to be learned.

This man, you see, is groping his way. He doesn't know
what the backing of organized labor is worth. But the news-
papermen of Boston found out; they won because the type-
setters and the pressmen stood by them. And the New York
actors won because the musicians and the stage-hands stood
by them. And this is the biggest thing about the whole move-
ment — the fact that workers of hand an(^ brain are uniting
and preparing to take possession of the world. One purpose
of this book is to urge a hand-and-brain union in the newspaper
field; to urge that the news-writers shall combine with the
pressmen and type-setters and the truckmen — one organization
of all men and women who write, print and distribute news,
to take control of their own labor, and see to it that the news-
papers serve public interests and not private interests.

What I ask at the very outset is a representative of the
News-Writers' Union, acting as one of the copy-readers of

4S4 The Brass Check

every newspaper. This man will say, in the name of his organ-
ization: "That is a lie; it shall not go in. This news-item is
colored to favor the railroad interests; it must be re-written.
To-night there is a mass-meeting of labor to protest against
intervention in Russia. That meeting is worth a column."
Such demands of the copy-reader will, if challenged, be brought
before a committee of the workers of the paper — the workers
both of hand and brain. If any demand is not complied with,
the paper will not appear next day. Do you think that lying
about the labor movement would continue under such con-
ditions ?

I recognize the rights of the general public in the deter-
mining of news. I should wish to see a government repre-
sentative sitting in all councils where newspaper policy is
laid down. The owner should be represented, so long as
his ownership exists; but unless I mis-read the signs of the
times, the days of the owner as owner are numbered in our
industry. The owner may best be attended to by a govern-
ment price-fixing board, which will set wages for newspaper
work and prices of newspapers to the public at a point where
interest, dividends and profits are wiped out. So the owner
will become a worker like other workers; if he is competent
and honest, he will stay as managing director; if he is in-
competent and dishonest, he will go to digging ditches, under
the eye of a thoroughly efficient boss.

Little by little the workers of all industrial nations are
acquiring class-consciousness, and preparing themselves for
the control of industry. In America they seem backward,
but that is because America is a new country, and the vast
majority of the workers have no idea how the cards are
stacked against them. I have just been reading an account of
the general strike in Seattle, the most significant labor revolt
in our history, and I observe how painfully chivalrous the
Seattle strikers were. Because they did not permit the capi-
talist papers of their city to be published, therefore they re-
frained from publishing their own paper! This was magnifi-
cent, but it was not war, and I venture to guess that since the
Seattle strikers have had the capitalist newspapers, not merely
of their city, but of all the rest of the world telling lies about
them, they will be more practical next time — as practical as
those they are opposing.

How all this works out, you may learn from the Syn-

The Press Set Feee 425

dicalist movement of Italy — only, of course. Capitalist Jour-
nalism has not allowed you to know anything about the
Syndicalist movement of Italy! The glass-workers were
beaten in a terrific strike, and they realized that they had to
find. a new weapon; they contributed their funds and bought
a glass-factory, which they started upon a co-operative basis.
When this factory had its product ready for sale, strikes were
called on the other factories. By applying this method again
and again, the union broke its rivals, and bought them out
at a low price, and so before the war practically the entire
glass-industry of Italy was in the hands of co-operative unions,
and the glass-workers were getting the full value of their
product.

The same thing was being done before the war by the
agricultural workers in Sicily. The strikers had been shot
down by the soldiery, their own brothers and sons ; they bought
several estates and worked them co-operatively, and when
harvest-time came there was labor for the co-operative estates,
and there were strikes against the absentee landlords, who
were spending their time in Paris and on the Riviera. So the
landlords made haste to sell out, and the agricultural unions
were rapidly taking possession of the land of Sicily.

The same methods were recently tried out in the news-
paper field by strikers in the Argentine Republic ; I quote from
an account in the "Christian Science Monitor," a Boston news-
paper which gives fair accounts of radical happenings abroad,
and which may some day give fair accounts of radical hap-
penings in America. The "Christian Science Monitor" is in-
terviewing a United States embassy official, just returned from
Buenos Aires:

An incident of the latter strike shows the unique control, as
Mr. Barrett puts it, that they exercise over the newspapers. During
the seventy-three days the port was closed, the only goods handled
were shipments of newsprint. The newspapers represent the workers.
If a paper dares to send to its composing-room an item opposed to
the interest of the labor element, the compositors probably will re-
fuse to put it in type. If they do set it up and it appears, the paper
can expect no more newsprint from the docks.

I hear the reader says: "These strikers don't represent
the public; they represent themselves. You are only sub-
stituting one kind of class-interest for another." Ah, yes —
dear reader of capitalist opinion!

436 The Beass Check

This at least you admit; the class represented by the
strikers is vastly larger than that represented by the owners;
we are t|iat much nearer to democracy. But you demand one
hundred per cent pure democracy — dear reader of capitalist
opinion !

Well, the workers offer you the way; they cheerfully
permit all owners to become workers — either of hand or
brain — and to receive their full share with all other workers
of hand or brain; whereas, in the nature of the case, the
owners do not welcome the workers as owners, and are doing
all in their power to make sure that no one shall be owners
but themselves. This is the fundamental and all-determining
fact about the class struggle, and the reason why he who serves
the interest of the workers is serving the interest of all society,
and of the Co-operative Commonwealth which is to be. To
the argument that the taking of power by the workers is the
substitution of one kind of class tyranny by another kind of
class tyranny, the answer, complete and final, is that there is no
need of the capitalist class as a class and that the world will be
a happier place for all men when the members of that class
have become workers, either of hand or brain. When that has
been done, there will be no classes, therefore no class tyranny,
and no incentive to class lying. Thus, and thus only, shall we
break the power of the capitalist press — ^by breaking the power
of capitalism. And so it is that I, an advocate of pure democ-
racy, am interested in this story from the Argentine Republic,
and tempted to cry to the American dockers, the American
typographers, the American newswriters : "Help ! Help against
the lying, kept press !"

And as I am reading the final proofs of this book, I hear
the answer to my cry. I read the following in the "New York
Times" :

Boston, Oct. 28.— Pressmen employed by the Chappie Publishing
Company, Ltd., on discovering in a cartoon in "Life" which is being
printed here during the New York strike, what they considered a re-
flection on organized labor, suspended work and refused to return
tmtil the objectionable cartoon was taken out. The cartoon was elimi-
nated, and the men returned to work.

The drawing depicts a room apparently meant to typify conditions
existing in a city tenement' district. The artist portrays a man beating
his wife over the head with the leg of a chair. The woman is shown
lying on the floor; the man has one knee on her body and one hand
rlutching her throat. A child about two years old is shown in bed

The Press Set Feee 427

■watching the scene. Its face is expressive of horror. Another child,
evidently a little older, is stretched on the floor, face downward. At
the door is standing a patro'man in full uniform. He is talking with
a captain of police, who has rushed on the scene with drawn revolver.
The patrolman with hand upraised says : "It's all right, Captain, he's
got a union card."

You may think my remedy drastic; but, honestly, do you
think that any remedy could be too drastic for an infamy such
as this?

Here, as everywhere, the salvation of the world rests upon
you, the workers of hand and brain. I took up half this book
telling how the capitalist press lied about one man; you said,
perhaps, that I liked to be in the "limelight" ; anyhow, I was
only one writer-fellow, and it didn't matter to you what the
newspapers did to a writer-fellow. But now I make my appeal
for yourself, for your wives and your children. I have shown
you how this knavish press turns the world against you ; I have
shown how it turns you against yourself — ^how it seduces you,
poisons your mind, breaks your heart. You go on strike, and
it plays upon your fears, it uses your hunger and want as
weapons against you; it saps your strength, it eats out your
soul, it smothers your thinking under mountain-loads of lies.
You fall, and the chariot of Big Business rolls over you.

These men who own the world in which you struggle for
life — ^what is it that they want? They want power, power to
rule you. And what is it that you want? You want power
to rule yourself. Between those two wants there is eternal
and unending and irreconcilable war — such is the class struggle,
and whether you will or not, you take your part in it, and I
take mine. I, a writer-fellow who wants to write the truth,
appeal to you, the laboring fellows of hand and brain, who
want to read the truth, who must read the truth, if civilization
is not to perish. I cry to you : "Help ! Help against the lying,
kept press !"

I cry to you for the integrity of your calling, for the
honor and dignity of Journalism. I cry to you that Journalism
shall no longer be the thing described by Charles A. Dana,
master-cynic of the "New York Sun," "buying white paper at
two cents a pound and selling it at ten cents a pound." I cry
to you that Journalism shall be a public ministry, and that
you who labor in it shall be, not wage-slaves and henchmen of
privilege, but servants of the general welfare, helping your

428 The Brass Check

fellow-men to understand life, and to conquer the evils in
nature outside them, and in their own hearts. Why cannot the
men and women of this great profession form a society with
a common mind and a common interest and a common con-
science, based upon the fact that they are all necessary, they
have each, down to the humblest office-boy, their essential
part in a great social service?

By the blindness and greied of ruling classes the people
have been plunged into infinite misery ; but that misery has its
purpose in the scheme of nature. Something more than a
century ago we saw the people driven by just such misery to
grope their way into a new order of society; they threw off
the chains of hereditary monarchy, and made themselves citi-
zens of free republics. And now again we face such a crisis ;
only this time it is in the world of industry that we have to
abolish hereditary rule, and to build an industrial common-
wealth in which the equal rights of all men are recognized by
law. Such is the task before us ; go to it with joy and certaintj%
playing your part in the making of the new world, in which
there shall be neither slavery nor poverty, in which the natural
sources of wealth belong to all men alike, and no one lives in
idleness upon the labor of his fellows. That world lies just
before you, and the gates to it are barred only by ignorance
and prejudice, deliberately created and maintained by prosti-
tute journalism.

CHAPTER LXVI
A FRAME-UP THAT FELL DOWN

In concluding this, the most important and most dangerous
book I have ever written, I have a personal word to leave
with the reader. I have here attacked the most powerful in-
terests in America, and it seems to me hardly conceivable that
they will permit the attack to go out to the world, t;o be cir-
culated among the general public, without some attempt at
interference.

What will they do? I cannot say. There are things on
every page of this book which are libelous unless they are
true. If I am brought into court and required to prove them,
I may be facing a judge who has been appointed by the in-
terests I have exposed, a jury which has been selected by the
interests I have exposed, a prosecuting attorney who is looking
to these interests for his campaign-funds and his publicity at
the next election. The trial will be conducted on this simple
basis — that everything favorable to me is kept from the
public, and everything that can be made to seem unfavorable
to me is sent by telegraph and cable all over the world.

I would not mind losing what little property I own in the
world; I would not mind going to jail for this book. There
are only two things I would mind — first, having the book
barred from circulation, and second, being discredited in the
eyes of those I seek to influence in favor of Social Justice.
So in this, the last word I may be able to get to you on
the subject, I wish to warn you of one crucial fact, which is
this:

Our police and prosecuting authorities, our political ma-
chines and Big Business interests, are many of them practiced
in the art of producing in court whatever testimony may be
required in an emergency. There are few traction interests
or other public service corporations in America which do not
regularly employ perjured witnesses in case of need; and
those which have given up the custom have done so merely
because they have got the courts and the jury system so
completely in their hands that they no longer care what evi-
dence is introduced against them. We have seen Tom Mooney

429

430 The Brass Check

held in jail for three years, entirely upon the basis of per-
jured testimony. Even the trial judge has written that he is
satisfied that Tom Mooney is innocent — ^but still Tom Mooney
stays in jail!

I am doing what I can to get this book to the people. I
intend to go on doing what I can to that end. Meantime I
say to you, my readers, what I said to my wife when I went
out to Colorado on behalf of the coal-strikers: "Whatever
you read about me, don't worry. If there is any scandal,
pay no attention to it, for that is the way they fight in
Denver."

That is the way Big Business fights all over America.

The above was written in August. In November I am
reading the page proofs of the book, and "Big Business" steps
forward to prove me a prophet. A plot is laid against me,
so wanton and so utterly without basis of truth that no less
than an assassin could have planned it. I escaped — ^but by a
margin so narrow that it is unpleasant to think about it. Lit-
erally by a minute or two of time I missed having printed
on the front page of every big newspaper in America con-
vincing evidence that I am a secret German conspirator, con-
triving underhand plots for the undermining of my country!
My wife remarks: "I have been watching the radical move-
ment for seven or eight years, and I have heard much about
'frame-ups.' I always thought it was foolish talk, cheap melo-
drama ; but now I know that the 'frame-up' is a real thing, and
it has changed my whole view of the class struggle."

I have mentioned on page 399 how I made a speech before
the City Club of Los Angeles, exposing the dishonesty of the
"Los Angeles Times," whereupon the "Times" opened up a
furious attack upon me, demanding that I should be put in
jail. I have quoted one sample of its ravings. Every day or
so for a week it printed similar abuse, and it continues the
attack, both editorially and in its news columns. I have stated
publicly in the "Appeal to Reason" that I am collecting evi-
dence against the "Times," and preparing a book exposing
it; so the "Times" proclaims me as "the trumpet of Bolshe-
vism," and will be satisfied with nothing short of a life sentence
for me.

There is in Los Angeles a returned soldiers' paper, the
"Dugout." The editor, Sydney R. Flowers, is an American

A Frame-Up That Fell Down 431

citizen who was in South Africa at the outbreak of the war,
and was so anxious to fight the Kaiser that he left his wife
and baby and enlisted. Invalided to England, he tried again
to enlist, and finally enlisted in Canada, and served for three
years in Belgium and France. He was twice wounded and
once gassed, and has only one lung as a result. Returning to
his home in Los Angeles with his wife and child, he found the
war veterans' organization being courted as a strike-breaking
agency by the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association of
the city. Flowers rebelled, and started a rival organization,"
the Allied World War Veterans, and with the support of these
veterans he started the "Dugout." I met him, and heard him
speak several times, and gave him my support to the extent
of raising some money. He told me of the efforts of the
"M. and M." to bribe him, and of their plots against him;
he knew, and I knew, that there were spies in his office.

There came to the office a letter from a stranger who
signed himself "Paul Rightman." -The envelope bore a Chi-
cago return address, but had been mailed in Los Angeles. It
was typewritten, and the type was bad, the ribbon double,
with traces of red showing here and there. "Paul" suggested
to Flowers that he should send sample copies of his paper to
Socialist and labor papers abroad. Flowers, who is out to
prevent the next war by the spirit of international fraternity,
thought this a good idea ; his impulse was encouraged by a
mysterious Austrian who happened into his office a few minutes
after the letter arrived, and suggested to him exactly the sort
of letter he should write to these foreign editors — most of
whom, by a curious coincidence, happened to be in Silesia,
where American troops are going!

Flowers wrote the letters and mailed them, and an hour
or two after he had mailed them, two men who have been
seen frequently in the offices of the "M. and M.," called upon
Flowers' wife and terrified her by the announcement that her
husband had committed a crime which would cause him to be
sent to jail for life ; his only chance was to drop the "Dugout,"
and he had one hour in which to make his decision. Flowers
was summoned by a telephone call, purporting to come from
the United States District Attorney's office. He obeyed this
call, and in the hallway of the Federal Building was met by
two mysterious persons who exhibited shields of authority,
and informed him that he had three minutes in which to decide

433 The Bhass Check

whether he would drop the "Dugout" or be sent to jail for life.
He refused to decide so quickly, and telephoned me for
advice. I advised him to stand firm. I went to his office,
and in my hearing he gave orders over the telephone for the
printing of the next issue of his paper. In less than one hour
after he had given that order, someone, identity unknown, came
to the United States Attorney with "definite" information that
Flowers was in relation with enemy publications abroad, and
a search warrant was issued and served. I happened to be
present in the office of the "Dugout" and witnessed the events,
and can testify that the Federal agents, in defiance of the law,
refused to permit Flowers to read the search warrant; that
they held him against his will in violation of the law ; that they
raided the office of the Allied World War Veterans, which
they had been given no authority to enter; and finally that
they left the place a wreck.

Next morning there appeared in the "Los Angeles Times"
a front page two-column story about the uncovering of a nest
of treason. Among other things, it was stated that Flowers
had been publishing seditious material before the armistice,
and had been warned by the Federal authorities and forced to
change his tone ; the fact being that at this time Flowers was
in the trenches in France, and did not start the publication of
the "Dugout" until four or five months after the armistice !

I have said that the raid was brutally conducted. I might
mention that I protested to one of the Federal agents against
the unnecessary rowdyism, and this man remarked concerning
the other man, his chief : "He's a rough-neck. I don't believe
in rough-house business myself, there's no sense at all in it."
Also I might mention that I brought two assistant U. S.
Attorneys to the scene, and they arrived five minutes after
their agents had left, and admitted to me that the proceedings
were wholly unwarranted; one of them called up Flowers'
home and very angrily ordered the agents to desist fpm the
search they were making of that place. But next morning the
"Los Angeles Times" reported :

VIOLENCE FAKED

The government agents disturbed no property in the office,
simply carrying away the papers they desired. After the inspec-
tors had gone, witnesses say that certain known followers of
Flowers took possession of the offices, tore down an American
flag which was on the wall, threw it on the floor, and generally

A Frame-Up That Fell Down 433

wrecked the place. Then they sent for a "Los Angeles Examiner"
photographer to make a photograph of the offices, with the ap-
parent desire to have the publication of the photograph give the
impression that the Federal officers had desecrated the flag and
destroyed the office property.

Prior to this episode I had been too busy with my own
writings to have even read a copy of the "Dugout" through.
But I knew the record of Flowers in the war, and I knew his
purpGse since the war, and when I saw this plot to destroy
his magazine, I made up my mind to stand back of him. I
engaged a lawyer for him, and I sent long telegrams about
the case to the "Appeal to Reason" and other Socialist papers
over the country. So the masters of Los Angeles decided to
get me in the same net with Flowers.

There came to Flowers' office a second letter signed by the
mysterious "Paul." This letter was written on the same bad
typewriter, with a double ribbon showing traces of rod. But
this time the return address on the envelope was not "Paul
Rightman, Chicago, Illinois"; this time it was "Upton Sin-
clair, Pasadena, California!"

Flowers called me on the 'phone, and said : "Did you mail
me a letter yesterday?" I answered, "No, I haven't written
you any letter." "Well," said Flowers, "here is a letter with
your name on the envelope. Evidently somebody wants it to
appear that you are writing me letters signed with an assumed
name." "What is in the letter ?" I asked, and Flowers started
to read it to me over the 'phone. It was a letter of violent
denunciation of the government, full of the most venomously
treasonable sentiments, and offering to supply Flowers with
more names of papers in Germany with which he might cor-
respond. I waited to hear only about half of it, then I cried :
"Get that letter out of your office!"

"But wait — " said Flowers.

"Don't wait for anything," I insisted. "Drop what you
are doing and take that letter to my lawyer as quickly as you
can run."

Flowers promised me he would do that, and I hung up the
receiver. Two or three minutes after he left his office with
the letter in his pocket there were two agents of the District
Attorney's office of Los Angeles County looking for him at
his office. When he returned there were four of them on
hand, and they held him up and proceeded to make another

434 The Brass Check

raid. The man in charge, I might mention, was C. E. Sebas-
tian, once mayor of the city, prosecuted for a sexual crime,
kicked out of office by the people, and now working as a
detective for the District Attorney's office !

The first thing this man did was to examine all Flowers*
letters — ^letters on his desk, letters in the drawers of his desk,
letters in his pockets. There were some hundred and fifty
letters altogether, and they went over them all several times,
studying the return addresses on the envelopes. They spent
something like an hour and a half at it, and their balked
anger was comically evident. In their whispered consultations
Flowers heard them mention my name several times, and once
he heard Sebastian say : "He's a slick one."

Flowers was haled before the Grand Jury, indicted under
the Criminal Syndicalism law, and thrown into jail at once.
The authorities fixed the bail at fifteen thousand dollars, which
they hoped would be prohibitive, and denied Flowers the right
to see his counsel that night. They have taken every scrap
of paper belonging to the magazine. They have frightened off
one printer and raided another, and so they think they have
smashed the "Dugout."

Come to my lawyer's office for a minute and examine this
mysterious "Paul" letter. It is a long letter, very abusive and
stupid, and I won't waste space on it, except to point out one
more of the subtle traps that were placed in it. One sentence
denouncing the acts of the government agents adds the phrase :
"as I stated in the papers." It so happens that out of the half
million population of Los Angeles, just one person had been
quoted in the newspapers as protesting against the raid on
the "Dugout," and that one person was myself. So when this
letter was published, the newspapers would be able to say:
Upton Sinclair is carrying a secret correspondence with a pro-
German conspirator, using the alias "Paul." But you see, he
forgets and puts his name on the envelope ! And also he gives
himself away in the text of the letter — he identifies himself as
the mysterious conspirator!

If you have any doubt that this was the plan, you have
only to look at the "Los Angeles Times" next morning; a
double-column, front page story about this second raid on the
"Dugout," giving the full text of the first "Paul" letter as a
part of Flowers' "conspirings" with the enemy — ^and without
any hint that this mysterious "Paul" might be an imaginary

A Feame-Up That Fell Down 435

person! If the second "Paul" letter had been found, that
too would have been published in full, and the entire country
would have read a story to the effect that both letters had
come from Upton Sinclair, who was thus caught red-handed
in a vile German conspiracy against his country !

Maybe you are like my wife; maybe you never believed
in the "frame-up." But study this case, and see what else
you can make of it. Ask yourself : How comes it that the
raids of both the Federal agents and of the Los Angeles County
officers are so precisely timed to the arrival of letters from a
mysterious "Paul" whom nobody has ever seen? And how
comes it that this mysterious "Paul" puts the name of Upton
Sinclair on his envelope ? If "Paul" is afraid to put his own
name on the envelope, why does he not mail it without retifrn
address, as millions of letters are mailed every day? And
why does he employ the words : "As I stated in the papers" —
when he hasn't stated anything whatever in the papers, and
when Flowers must kndw he hasn't stated anything ? Is it not
plain that some dark agency is here working behind the scenes,
plotting to ruin Upton Sinclair, and "tipping off" both the
Federal authorities and the county authorities at the precise
critical moment?

What is this agency ? I do not know, and my lawyer, who
takes this conspiracy very seriously, will not permit me to
guess in public. But he admits my right to study these "Paul"
letters, and to point out a peculiar bit of internal evidence.
It would seem that this dark agency which is plotting to ruin
Upton Sinclair is also interested in injuring the "Los Angeles
Examiner." The first "Paul" letter offers to supply Flowers
with the names of more German papers, if he will insert a
request in the personal columns of the "Examiner"; and the
"Times" publishes this letter in full, calling particular atten-
tion to the damaging mention of the "Examiner." Day iafter
day the "Times" is attacking the "Examiner," calling it a
pro-German sheet; and here is a German conspirator usingi
this pro-German sheet as a medium for his schemes !

The above is what is done to me before this book comes
out. What will be done after my enemies have actually read
the book, I cannot imagine. All I can do is to repeat my
warning to you. Twenty years ago old "One-hoss" Wayland
told me he had made it the rule of his life never to write a
letter that he would not publish in the "Appeal Jo Reason."

436 The Beass Check

And that is the principle upon which I have always carried on
my propaganda. I have no secrets. What I have to say is
said once a week in a full page of the "Appeal," and the
opposition to violence and conspiracy in the class struggle
which I there write in public I advocate just as vigorously
in private, and all my friends know it. So, if at any time
you read that a carload of dynamite bombs has been found
in my home, or that I have been carrying on a cipher cor-
respondence with some foreign assassins, or that I have
poisoned my wife and eloped with a chorus girl, or that I
have taken a job on the "Los Angeles Times" — ^please go back
and read this warning, and understand what is being done to
both of us.

CONCLUSION

When I first talked over this book with my wife, she gavt
me a bit of advice : "Give your facts first, and then call your
names." So throughout this book I have not laid much stress
on the book's title. Perhaps you are wondering just where the
title comes in!

What is the Brass Check? The Brass Check is found in
your pay-envelope every week — you who write and print and
distribute our newspapers and magazines. The Brass Check
is the price of your shame — ^you who take the fair body of
truth and sell it in the market-place, who betray the virgin
hopes of mankind into the loathsome brothel of Big Busi-
ness. And down in the counting-room below sits the "madame"
who profits by your shame; unless, perchance, she is off at
Palm Beach or Newport, flaunting her jewels and her feathers.

Please do not think that I am just slinging ugly words.
OS and on for years I have thought about this book, and
figured over the title, and what it means ; I assert that the
Brass Check which serves in the house of ill-fame as "the
price of a woman's shame" is, both in its moral implications
and in its social effect, precisely and identically the same as
the gold and silver coins and pieces of written paper that are
found every week in the pay-envelopes of those who write
and print and distribute capitalist publications.

The prostitution of the body is a fearful thing. The young
girl, trembling with a strange emotion of which she does not
know the meaning, innocent, confiding and tender, is torn from

Conclusion 437

her home ana started on a road to ruin and despair. The lad,
seeking his mate and the fulfilment of his destiny, sees the
woman of his dreams turn into a foul harpy, bearer of pesti"
lence and death. Nature, sumptuous, magnificent, loving life,
cries: "Give me children!" And the answer comes: "We
give you running sores and bursting glands, rotting lips and
festering noses, swollen heads and crooked joints, idiot gab-
blings and maniac shrieks, pistols to blow out your brains and
poisons to still your agonies." Such is the prostitution of
the body.

But what of the mind? The mind is master of the body,
and commands what the body shall do and what it shall be-
come ; therefore, always, the prostitution of the mind precedes
and causes the prostitution of the body. Youth cries: "Life
is beautiful, joyous! Give me light, that I may keep my
path !" The answer comes : "Here is darkness, that you may
stumble, and beat your face upon the stones!" Youth cries:
"Give me Hope." The answer comes : "Here is Cynicism."
Youth cries: "Give me understanding, that I may live in*
harmony with my fellow-men." The answer comes: "Here
are lies about your fellow-men, that you inay hate them, that
you may cheat them, that you may live among them as a wolf
among wolves !" Such is the prostitution of the mind.
, When I planned this book I had in mind a sub-title: "A
Study of the Whore of Journalism." A shocking sub-title:
but then, I was quoting the Bible, and the Bible is the inspired
word of God. It was surely one of God's prophets who wrote
this invitation to the reading of "The Brass Check" :

Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters;

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,
and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine
of her fornication.

For eighteen hundred years men have sought to probe the
vision of that aged seer on the lonely isle of Patmos. Listen
to his strange words:

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness : and I
saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was
arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hands full of abomina-
tions and filthiness of her fornication:

438 The Brass Check

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABY-
LON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMI-
NATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Now, surely, this mystery is a mystery no longer! Now
we know what the seer of Patmos was foreseeing — Capitalist
Journalism ! And when I call upon you, class-conscious work-
ers of hand and brain, to organize and destroy this mother of
all iniquities, I do not have to depart from the language of
the ancient scriptures. I say to you in the words of the
prophet Ezekiel:

So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court;

and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.

And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house:

Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their

kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.

A PRACTICAL PROGRAM

As I am about to send this book to press, I take one last
look at the world around me. Half a million coal-miners
have struck, a court injunction has forced the leaders to call
off the strike, the niiners are refusing to obey their leaders —
and the newspapers of the entiire United States are concealing
the facts. For a week it has been impossible for me to learn,
except from vague hints, what is happening in the coal-strike.
And at the same time, because of false newspaper stories from
Centralia, Washington, a "white terror" reigns in the entire
West, and thousands of radicals are beaten, jailed, and shot.

I have pleaded and labored long to avoid a violent revolu-
tion in America; I intend to go on pleading and laboring to
the last hour. I know that thousands of my readers will,
like myself, be desperately anxious for something they can
do. I decided to work out a plan of action ; something definite,
practical, and immediate.

I propose that we shall found and endow a weekly pub-
lication of truth-telling, to be known as "The National News."
This publication will carry no advertisements and no editorials.
It will not be a journal of opinion, but a record of events pure
and simple. It will be published on ordinary news-print paper,
and in the cheapest possible form. It will have one purpose
and one only, to give to the American people once every week
the truth about the world's events. It will be strictly and

A Practical Peogeam 439

absolutely nonpartisan, and never the propaganda organ of
any cause. It will watch the country, and see where lies are
being circulated and truth suppressed; its job will be to nail
the lies, and bring the truth into the light of day. I believe
that a sufficient number of Americans are awake to the dis-
honesty of our press to build up for such a paper a circulation
of a million inside of a year.

Let me say at the outset that I am not looking for a job.
I have my work, and it isn't editing a newspaper; nor do I
judge myself capable of that rigid impartiality which such an
enterprise would require. It is my idea that control of the
paper should be vested in a board of directors, composed^ of
twenty or thirty men and women of all creeds and causes, who
have proven by their life-time records that they believe in
fair play. By way of illustration, I will indicate my idea of
such a board : Allan Benson, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet
Stanton Blatch, Arthur Bullard, William C. Bullitt, Herbert
Croly, Max Eastman, William Hard, MrS. J. Borden Harri-
man. Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Hamilton Holt, Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, Paul liellogg, Amos Pinchot, Charles Ed-
ward Russell, Lincoln Steflfens, J. G. Phelps Stokes, Ida Tar-
bell, Col.- William Boyce Thompson, Samuel Untermyer,
Frank A. Vanderlip, Oswald Garrison Villard, Rabbi Stephen
S. Wise.

The above list is confined to men and women who live in
or near New York, and who therefore could attend directors'
meetings, and not be merely "dummies." You will note that
the list contains some practical publishers and editors; it con-
tains Socialists and anti-Socialists, pro-Bolsheviks and anti-
Bolsheviks, radicals and liberals of all shades.

In addition I would like to provide for a number of direc-
tors to be appointed by various organized groups in the coun-
try: one representative each from the Non-partisan League,
The American Federation of Labor, the National Teachers'
Federation, the Federation of Catholic Societies, the Federa-
tion of Protestant Churches, the Federation of Women's Clubs,
etc. The members thus named should not be sufficient in
number to control the publication, for it is obvious in common
sense that control must rest with the stockholders who have
founded and made possible the paper. But these various
groups should have a voice on the board, for the purpose of

440 The Beass Check

criticizing the publication and holding it rigidly to its declared
policy, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
It should be provided that each director has the right to a
column twice a year in the publication, in which to state any
criticism of its policy which he may have; also that any five
directors have the right once a month to insert a column point-
ing out what they consider failure of the paper to live up to
its professed standards. There should be a directors' meeting
in New York City once every month, and all these meetings
should be open to representatives of the press; the editorial
staflf should be present, and answer all criticisms and explain
their policy. Unless I am mistaken, this would result in mak-
ing "National News" in another sense; the capitalist press
would be forced to discuss the paper, and to advertise it.

I picture a publication of sixty-four pages, size nine inches
by twelve, with three columns of ordinary newspaper type.
The paper will have special correspondents in several of the
big cities, and in the principal capitals of Europe, and will
publish telegraphic news from these correspondents. It will
obtain the names of reliable men in cities and towns through-
out America, and in case of emergency it can telegraph, say
n- Denver, ordering five hundred words about the Ludlow
massacre, or to Spokane, ordering the truth about the Cen-
tralia fight. The editor of the "National News" will sit in
a watch-tower with the world spread before him; thousands
of volunteers will act as his eyes, they will send him letters
or telegrams with news. He and his staff will consider it all
according to one criterion : Is the truth being hidden here ?
Is this something the American people ought to know? If
so, the editor will send a trusted man to get the story, and
when he has made certain of the facts he will publish them,
regardless of what is injured, the Steel Trust or the I. W. W.,
the Standard Oil Company or the Socialist Party — even the
"National News" itself.

Our editor will not give much space to the news that all
other papers publish. The big story for him will be what
the other papers let alone. He will employ trained investiga-
tors, and set them to work for a week, or maybe for several
months, getting the facts about the lobby of the Beef Trust
in Washington, the control of our public schools in the interest
of militarism, the problem of who is paying the expenses of

A Practical Program MX

the American railway mission in Siberia. Needless to say,
the capitalist press will provide the "National News" with
a complete monopoly of this sort of work. Also it will provide
the paper with many deliberate falsehoods to be nailed. When
this is done, groups of truth-loving people will buy these
papers by the thousands, and blue-pencil and distribute them.
So the "National News" will grow, and the "kept" press will
be moved by the only force it recognizes — loss of money.

There are in America millions of people who could not
be persuaded to read a Socialist paper, or a labor paper, or
a single tax paper; but there are very few who could not
be persuaded to read a paper that gives the news and proves
by continuous open discussion that it really does believe in
"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." I do
not think I am too optimistic when I say that such a publica-
tion, with a million circulation, would change the whole tone
of American public life.

What would such a paper cost? To.be published without
advertisements, it would have to charge a high subscription
price, two dollars a year at least; and there are not enough who
will subscribe to a paper at that price. It would be better for
the people to go without shoes than without truth, but the peo-
ple do not know this, and so continue to spend their money for
shoes. If the "National News" is to succeed, the few who do
realize the emergency must pay more than their share; in
other words, the paper must have a subsidy, and the subsidy
must be large enough to make success certain — otherwise, of
course, no one ought to give anything.

I have telegraphed to publishers of liberal sympathies in
the East, and present herewith the following estimate of the
cost of launching and maintaining the "National News" :

Weekly cost on basis of half million circulation : Editorial,
overhead and paid matter, $1,000 ; paper, composition and printing,
$9,000; addressing and mailing, $1,000; stencil list, $1,000; postage,
$1,250 ; telegraph $250 ; business and circulation, $500 ; total, $14,000
per week, $728,000 per year.

The above is figured, as request,ed, on 64 page paper, size' nine
by twelve. Such work has to /be done in a job plant and is more ex-
pensive. By making 32 pages, size twelve by eighteen, the cost, could
be cut to $650,000 per year.

Income on basis of 500,000 circulation, three-fifths consisting of
paid subscriptions at one dollar per year, and two-fifths of news-stand
sales at five cents per copy retail, three cents wholesale : $612,006.

443 The Bkass Check

Deficit to be made up by subsidy, $116,000. Deficit on larger size,
$38,000.

On basis of one million circulation. Cost in smaller size will be
$1,300,000; income will be $1,224,000; defict, $76,000. On the larger
size there would be no deficit.

I It is recommended that no definite policy as to advertising be
fixed in preliminary stages, but the matter left to the directing board.
There is a great deal of advertising, relating to books, liberal organiza-
tions and political movements, which adds to the interest of a publica-
tion; also there is some commercial advertising which would not seek
to control policy. A definite declaration contained in advertising
contracts, to the effect that the contract carries no expectation of
editorial favors, -and rigid adherence to this principle should suffice.
The deficits here figured would be covered by one or two pages of
advwtising per week, so it is not necessary to figure a "permanent
deficit on the paper.

I The income from subscriptions has been figured without agents'
commissions and premiums, on the understanding that the paper will
rely on volunteer labor for canvassing. For the same reason the
sum of one hundred thousand dollars may be set as the maximum
cost of establishing the paper.

The above represents the combined views of three different
persons, all qualified experts. As suggested, I will leave the
questions of detail to be worked out by the governing board.
It appears that we may have an honest paper if we will give
one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and will pledge, say
thirty thousand dollars a year for two years to cover a possible
deficit.

Such are the figures. I believe that this amount of money
can be raised, and I purpose to set out and raise it. To
every reader of this book I say: Will you help, and if so,
how much? Presumably nobody will want to cut out a page
from a book, so I will not print a stock subscription blank.
I ask that you write me a letter as follows :

Upton Sinclair,

Pasadena, California:
Assuming that you are able to .raise the total necessary endowment
fund and permanent annual subsidy for the "National News," and
that you name an organization committee satisfactory to us, we, the
undersigned, agree to contribute to the project as follows :

Then give, in vertical columns, names ; addresses ; the num-
ber of subscribers that each signer undertakes to obtain, on a
basis of not more than one dollar per year; the amount of
money that each signer will contribute to the endowment fund ;

Publisher's Note 443

the amount that each will contribute each year to make up
the permanent deficit.

Please do not send money for the paper. I will let you
know when I reach that stage, and meantime I do not want
the responsibility of keeping money. If you are enough in-
terested in the plan to care to. help in advertising it, printing,
circulars and soliciting pledges from people of means, I will
be glad to receive such money and to account for it. If I suc-
ceed in raising the necessary sum, I will name an organization
committee, and have a charter prepared, and submit the whole
matter to you for endorsement.

Sometimes people criticize my books as being "destructive."
Well, here is a book with a constructive ending. Hpre is some-
thing to be done ; something definite, practical, and immediate.
Here is a challenge to every lover of truth and fair dealing
in America to get busy and help create an open forum through
which our people ma/ get the truth about their affairs, and
be able to settle their industrial problems without bloodshed
and waste. Will you do your share?

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Two years ago I finished "The profits of Religion," and
offered it to publishers. They said it could not be sold; no
book on religion could be sold, it was the deadest subject in
the world. I believed that "The Profits of Religion" could
be sold, and I published it myself. In less than a year I
have sold forty thousand copies, and am still selling them.

One reason, of course, is the low price. Everybody told
me that a book could not be published at that price. I would
report on the figures if I could, but I gave the book as a
premium for my magazine, and never made any attempt to
separate the two ventures. All that I can report is that since
February, 1918, when I started the magazine, I have taken in
for magazines and books a total of $14,269, and I have paid
out for printing, postage, labor and advertising, a total of
$20,995. This deficit represents some two hundred thousand
magazines sent out free for propaganda purposes ; the deficit
was made up by donations from friends, so it cost me nothing
but my time,, which I gladly gave. And I am willing to give
it again; I can't expect either royalty as author or profit as
publisher from "The Brass Check." The cost of book manu-

444 The Brass Check

facturing has increased fifty per cent in the past two years,
and to make matters worse, "The Brass Check" is exactly
twice as long as "The Profits of Religion." If this book were
published in the ordinary way, to be sold to book-stores, it
would be priced at $8.00, postage extra; or possibly even
$2.50. Sold, as it is, at $1.00, postpaid, it is an appeal to the
conscience of every reader to do his part in helping to get it '
widely distributed.

"The Profits of Religion" was practically boycotted by the
capitalist press of America. Just one newspaper, the "Chicago
Daily News," reviewed it — or rather allowed me space in which
to review it myself. Just one religious publication, the
"Churchman," took the trouble to ridicule it at length. Half
a dozen others sneered at it in brief paragraphs, and half a
dozen newspapers did the same, and that was all the publicity
the book got, except in the radical press. That this was a
deliberate boycott, and not the fault of the book, is something
which I leave for my readers to assert.

"The Brass Check," of course, will be treated in the same
way. If it gets any publicity, it will be only because of a libel
suit or something sensational. If the great mass of the people
ever hear of the book, it will be bec^iuse you, the reader, do
your part. If it seems to you an honest book, and one which
the public ought to know, get busy. If you can afford it, order
a number of copies and give them to your friends. If you can't
afford that, make up a subscription list among your friends.
If you need to earn money, turn agent, and sell the book among
your neighbors, in the shop where you work, on the road.
If yoiir experience is the same as mine, you will find nearly
everybody distrustful of Capitalist Journsdism, and willing at
least to consider the truth about it.

POSTSCRIPT TO SECOND EDITION.— A letter from E. J.
Costello, managing editor of the "Federated Press" :

"Let me say in this very first sentence that the 'Brass Check' is
the most remarkable book that has ever been published in America.
It is one that should, in the quickest possible manner, be placed in
the hands of every American who can read, and read to every American
who cannot read.

"I have been in this newspaper game for about twenty years, and
I know from my own experience that your story is the absolute truth.
For dozens of the incidents of "kept press' rottenness I can cite counter-
parts. Your story of the Associated Press is without doubt the most

Pttbushee^s Note i^^

concise expose on record of the despicable methods which prevail in
that organization."

Mr. Costello goes on to tell me that he was for seven years a staff
correspondent and editor for the Associated Press. He was in charge
of its Des Moines bureau at the time I was trying to get out the truth
from the Colorado coal strike. One day there came through on the
Associated Press wire instructions from the New York office "that
fienceforth Upton Sinclair must be kept out of the Denver office,
and that no relations with him might be had by any employe of the
Denver bureau. I remember that my operator copied the message
and brought it to me, and that I determined to keep it for possible
future reference.

"Within fifteen minutes after the message had been sent- the chief
operator at Chicago asked the Des Moines operator if he had copied
it, and on being informed affirmatively he ordered the copy sent to
Chicago. The operator asked me for the message, but I declined to
let him have it. I placed it in a locked compartment of my desk,
where it remained for several weeks, when one day it turned up miss-
ing. I have never been able to ascertain just how it disappeared, but
I am quite positive that other keys iitted my desk, and that there
was a reason for its disappearance. It wasn't so many months after
this occurrence that I was ordered in to the Chicago office, presumably
because it was thought I would bear watching. My radical views led
finally, in 1916, to my leaving the Associated Press service entirely.

"Perhaps you have not heard that it was because of his efforts
to do the square thing by you in the Ammons matter that Rowsey
was discharged by Superintendent Cowles upon the orders of Melville
E. Stone. Yet that was what was currently reported in inner 'A. P.'
circles at the time."

Mr. Costello goes on to tell me that he left the Associated Press
with his mind made up as to what was to be his life's work, "the estab-
lishment of a press association which would represent the people who
work, as against the eight or ten millionaire publishers, who, through
the ownership of Associated Press bonds, outvote nearly 2,000 other
members of the organization, and absolutely control the channels
through which the great public gets its poisoned news."

The "Federated Press" had its inception at a convention of the
Labor Party in Chicago, November, 1919. It is a co-operative non-
profit-making organization of working class newspapers, and maintains
an admirable service of vital news from all over the world. It pub-
lishes a weekly four-page bulletin, which it will mail to you for five
dollars a year, and which you will find worth the price many times
over. The address of the "Federated Press" is 156 W. Washington
Street, Chicago, 111.

A book which has been absolutely boycotted by the
literary reviews of America.

THE PROFITS OF RELIGION

By Upton Sinclair

A STUDY of Supernaturalism as a Source of Income
and a Shield to Privilege; the first examination in
any language of institutionalized religion from the eco-
nomic point of view. "Has the labour as well as the
merit of breaking virgin soil," writes Joseph McCabe.,
The book has had practically no advertising and only two
or three reviews in radical publications; yet forty thou-
sand copies have been sold in the first year.

From the Rev. John Haynes Holmes: "I must confess that it
has fairly made me writhe to read these pages, not because they
are untrue or unfair, but on the contrary, because I know them
to be the real facts. I love the church as I love nqr home, and
therefore it is no pleasant experience to be made to face such a
story as this which you have told. It had to be done, however,
and I am glad you have done it, for my interest in the church,
after all, is more or less incidental, whereas my interest in re-
ligion is a fundamental thing. . . . Let me repeat again that
I feel that you have done us all a service in the writing of this
book. Our churches today, like those of ancient Palestine, are the
abode of Pharisees and scribes. It is as spiritual and helpful a
thing now as it was in Jesus' day for that fact to be revealed."

From Luther Burbank: "No one has ever told 'the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth' more faithfully than
Upton Sinclair in 'The Profits of Religion.' "

From Louis Untermeyer: "Let me add my quavering alto to
the chorus of applause of 'The Profits of Religion.' It is some-
thing more than a book — it is a Work !"

From Gertrude Atherton-' "'The Profits of Religion' is both
erudite and courageous — aside from its compelling interest."

315 pages. Single copy, paper, 50c postpaid; three
copies, $1.20 ; ten copies, $3.50. By freight collect, 25 copies
or more at 30 cents per copy. Single copy, cloth, $1.00
postpaid; three copies, $2.25; ten copies, $7.00. By freight
collect, 25 copies or more at 60 cents per copy.

JIMMIE HIGGINS

JIMMIE HIGGINS" is the fellow who does the hard
work in the job of waking up the workers. Jimmie
hates war — all war — and fights against it with heart and
soul. But war comes, and Jimmie is drawn into it,
whether he wiU, or no. He has many, adventures — strikes,
jails, munitions explosions, draft-boards, army-camps,
submarines and battles. "Jimmie Higgins Goes to War"
at last, and when he does he ht)lds back the German army
and wins the battle of "Chatty Terry." But then they
send him into Russia to fight the Bolsheviki, and there
"Jimmie Higgins Votes for Democracy."

A picture of the American working-class movement
during four years of world-war; all wings of the move-
ment, all the various tendencies and clashing impulses are
portrayed. Cloth, $1.00 postpaid.

From "the Candidate": I have just finished reading the first insta '-
ment of "Jimmie Higgins" and I am delighted with it. It is the beginnir, ;
of a great story, a story that will be translated into many langusiges an 1
be read by eager and interested millions all over the world. 1 feel that
your art will lend itself readily to "Jimmie Higgins," and that you will be
at your best in placing this dear little comrade where he belongs ip the
Socialist movement. The opening chapter of your story proves that you
know him intimately. So do I and 1 love him with all my heart, even as
you do. He -has done more for me than I shall ever be able to do for
him. Almost anyone can be "The Candidate," and almost anyone will do
for a speaker, but it takes the rarest of qualities to produce a "Jimmie
Higgins." You are painting a superb portrait of our "Jimmie" and I con-
gratulate you. EuGENB V. DSBS.

From Mrs. Jack London: Jimmie Higgins is immense. He is real, and
so are the other characters. I'm sure ygu rather fancy Comrade Dr.
Service! The beginning of the narrative is delicious with an irresistible
loving humor; and as a change comes over it and the Big Medicine begins
to work, one realizes by the light of 1918, what you have undertaken to
accomplish. The sure touch of your genius is here, Upton Sinclair, and
I wish Jack London might read and enjoy. Charmiah I,ohdon.

From a Socialist Artist: Jimmie Higgins' start is a master portrayal of
that character. I have been out so long on these lecture tours that I can
appreciate the picture. I am waiting to see how the story develops. It
starts better than "King Coal." Ryan Walker.

From a Novelist: I have been intensely interested in "Jimmie Hig-
gins," as it gives me a progressive, point of view that I could not get
elsewhere, and I get the whole picture owing to your skill, with no eifort
on my own part. Gektrudb Atheetoh.

Price, cloth, $1.00 postpaid.
UPTON SINCLAIR - Pasadena, California

OTHER BOOKS BY
UPTON SINCLAIR

KING COAL: a Novel of the Colorado coal coun-
try. Cloth, $1.00.

"Clear, convincing, complete." — Lincoln Steffens.

"I wish that evfery word of it could be burned deep
into the heart of every American." — Adolph Germer.

THE CRY FOR JUSTICE: an Anthology of the
Literature of Social Protest, with an Introduction by
Jack London, who calls it "this humanist Holy-book."
Thirty-two illustrations, 891 pages, $1.50.

"It should rank with the very noblest works of all
time. You could scarcely have improved on its contents
— it is remarkable in variety and scope. Buoyant, but
never blatant, powerful and passionate, it has the spirit
of a challenge and a battle cry." — Louis Untermeyer.

"You have marvelously covered the whole ground.
The result is a book that radicals of every shade have
long been waiting for. You have made one that every
student of the world's thought — economic, philosophic,
artistic— has to have." — Reginald Wright KauflEman.

SYLVIA : a Novel of the Far South. Price $1.00.

SYLVIA'S MARRIAGE: a sequel. Price $1.00.

DAMAGED GOODS : a Novel made from the play
by Brieux. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents.

PLAYS OF PROTEST : four dramas. , Price $1.00.

THE FASTING CURE: a study of the problem
of health. Price $1.00.

The above prices postpaid.
UPTON SINCLAIR - Pasadena, California